AL:ICE-9 (29 page)

As he descended via the initial elevator, he actually had to transfer to others twice and pass through various security checkpoints. Normally these would be manned positions with multiple mechanisms for verification. All were currently under ALICE control.

Finally reaching the access door to the main storage area, he entered into a wide hallway with doors on both sides.

ALICE explained, “Each door represents a different munition. This room contains a warhead capable of vaporizing most of LA.”

As the door opened, Jake looked inside to see racks on both sides of the room, with shelves from floor to ceiling. It ran back for about 100 feet, giving Jake the impression that there were hundreds of warheads in there. Each was in a metal box about the size of a small rectangular suitcase.

He knew better than to confuse the warhead itself with the delivery mechanism. These might fit into a missile or be fitted to an artillery shell.

Jake continued down the hall, ALICE explaining each ordnance and providing assurances of the safeguards to prevent its unauthorized usage. Most of what was here scared the crap out of Jake, and he hoped he wasn’t put into a position to have to use it. Even the NeHaw did not deserve some of what was down here.

She did show Jake the room containing the missiles that disabled the NeHaw energy shields. He asked her to be sure they sent some up to the cruisers and destroyers when they were ready. As there was a limited supply, they would only get a few each.

Once back on the occupied floors, Jake was debating about going to eat in the dining hall when ALICE-9 announced, “Jake, ALICE tells me she needs you to go to the control room. Apparently there may be some trouble?”

“On my way,” Jake replied, as he picked up the pace.

Upon entering the control room, Jake paused long enough to take in those in attendance. He had met the same few individuals earlier, so he assumed the issue wasn’t local.

“Ok ALICE, what’s up?” He asked.

“We have a representative from Klinan holding for you. Apparently they are in need of some assistance,” she answered.

“Klinan?” Jake asked.

“They are one of the treaty planets. They are renowned for their art and luxury goods. As they are quite the favorite of NeHaw upper society, their secession probably was very unpopular. Be aware, they are fairly formal in their interactions.”

“Ok, put them on,” Jake replied.

As expected, the hologram formed in the center of the room. This time the shape in the display was of a thin, angular life form. Humanoid in form, its nose was more of two slots and its skin had a distinctly yellow cast to it. Large oval eyes dominated the face, with a thin mouth having no lips.

“President Thomas, thank you very much for accepting my urgent communication so promptly,” the face in the holograph said.

“I am Honan, emissary of the Klinan, representative of the ruling council and ambassador to earth.”

“Honan, it is my pleasure to meet you, how may I assist?” Jake replied in the most pompous manner he could muster.

“We are aware of your intervention on behalf of the Wawobash recently, and appear to have a similar need. The NeHaw have deposited a large number of mercenaries on our home world. They are currently separating into two smaller forces with the expected intent of ravaging the two closest communities.”

“Can you send us all the relevant information you have on the situation? Since we don’t have any forces in the area it will take several days to get in position,” Jake replied while going over the logistics in his head.

“That is expected. We are evacuating the communities closest to the landings. We are a peaceful people and have no ability to resist. We have begun transmitting all the information we have,” answered the emissary.

“We will dispatch forces as soon as possible,” Jake finished.

“Thank you,” was the reply, and then the connection dropped.

“Would you like to see the video?” ALICE asked Jake.

“Yes please,” Jake replied, with a resigned tone to the answer.

With that, ALICE reinstated the holograph, this time it held the Klinan video of the NeHaw landings and subsequent dispersal of troops.

“Crap,” was all Jake said.

Chapter 29

Patti was in the middle of the combat planning room with her entire staff and Sara. As she had heard Jake say before, it was assholes and elbows in there, as everyone was scrambling to get their part of the effort in place.

They initiated the recall of all SMEF members and a veteran security team from Texas replaced the unit headed to Georgia. Jake himself was currently in route to Nevada as well, at a break neck speed, she was sure.

Currently, she had every available analyst going over the data provided by the Klinan. The images submitted, showed large blue apelike creatures, first splitting from one group into two and them darting off into two directions. 

The overheads indicated that the NeHaw had dropped the apes unarmed in one location, and then did a weapons drop a significant distance away in two different locations. The current guess was they didn’t trust the mercenaries to be armed on their ships and wanted to put time and space between them before they were armed.

Patti shuddered to think about the significance of a mercenary force the NeHaw feared. The current rough estimate was there were about 4,000 troops, split roughly in two. While everyone was having the tendency to objectify these creatures as mindless beasts, she noted indicators to the contrary.

Freezing and zooming the images allowed the analysts to identify communications equipment and other tactical systems mixed in amongst the masses. Several had headsets, presumably used to co-ordinate activities between units. She identified tactical displays utilized by some to direct groups to the weapons drops.

They might appear brutish, but she was sure they weren’t mindless beasts.

----*----

Jake hit the hangar in Nevada in just under two hours. During the flight, he had been in constant contact with all the various elements of the 1
st
SMEF. All marines were in route to their mustering points. The necessary ships were being readied and the troop’s equipment was being transferred.

Once on the ground, he went straight to the combat planning room. As he walked in, both Patti and Sara immediately hailed him.

“Jake, come look at this,” Sara said.

Crossing the busy room and looking over the women’s shoulders, he could see a video of a large group of blue gorillas distributing NeHaw weaponry amongst the crowd. While there was the occasional pushing and shoving, it all appeared reasonably well organized.

“How big are these things?” Jake asked.

“Our best guess is about seven feet and 400 pounds, earth normal. By the way, this planet is 85% earth normal gravity,” the analyst replied.

Standing straight, Jake asked, “Status?”

With that, both Sara and Patti moved to the center of the room with Patti starting, “As you know the 1
st
has been recalled and are currently mustering and gathering all their combat gear. With the losses from LA, we are down to two full platoons and two squads. We assumed an LA type deployment, so we have included 10
th
Cavalry and the weapons carriers to be included.”

“What’s the planet's environment like,” Jake asked.

“As mentioned earlier, its 85% of earth normal gravity. That, plus the heavy combat suits power assist, it should be an easy environment for the troops. Atmosphere is unable to support human life, but all our weapons will function, so no restrictions there. Terrain is fairly flat throughout the region with minimal vegetation.”

Jake thought about all that for a moment and then asked, “Ok, what’s our transport?”

“We estimate six destroyers, two squads per, plus vehicles and flyers. At least one of the cruisers is needed, maybe
Revenge
, acting as both flagship and as high cover against the two NeHaw destroyers standing just off planet.”

“The NeHaw aren’t using the destroyers?” Jake asked.

“No, they just did a drop and run. It’s almost like they are as afraid of these guys as the Klinan are.” Sara replied.

“Or they have something else planed,” Jake added, “what the status of the battleship?”

“It’s still a work in progress,” ALICE replied, “the modifications you requested are somewhat delicate and not to be rushed.”

“Damn, ok let’s bring a second cruiser, either
Independence
or
Defiance
. Not one of the new ones,” Jake said.

“I want the remote combat planning room transferred to
Revenge
. Patti you can stay here in the main one and Sara will run operations from
Revenge
.”

Jake noted Patti didn’t seem all that upset at being left behind, while Sara was absolutely thrilled to be running the show on site.

“Sara pick a small team, there isn’t a lot of room on the cruiser,” he finished.

“Yes sir,” she replied overly officially, then smiled.

“Ok so let me hear your ideas on how we are going to take on 4,000 heavily armed aliens with about 120 marines?”

For the next several hours, they went over all the analysis available, constantly referring back to the raw data provided by the Klinan. Patti had found references in the materials naming the Netite as the mercenary force. ALICE had to retrieve several snippets from the treaty planets data dump to pull reference of the past Netite operations.

All the data indicated a brutal, minimally organized fighting style very similar to the Vikings. Unlike the common impression of Vikings as berserker warriors, they were actually
direct, aggressive, efficient, and clever. They will try to seize the initiative, to take control of the fight. They do what is necessary to win, using whatever tools are available.
Thus
, they use clever and improvisational moves.

Vikings did not have a lot of
moves or techniques in battle. But, they used what they
had
well, completing the fight efficiently. All the information on the Netite indicated a full frontal attack, no subtle moves.

There
was
no way Jake
was
going toe to toe with this group in a head on battle. It
was
time to pull out the combat references.

----*----

By days end, they had everyone loaded into six destroyers and two cruisers, all headed to the edge of the solar system and an FTL trip to Klinan. Jake left standing orders that if the battleship was completed soon, it was to join them on site as quickly as possible.

Jake had joined Sara on
Revenge
,
Independence
acting as the second cruiser. For the few days ride to the edge of the system, it allowed him to participate in the planning. Once they were all in faster than light, they couldn’t communicate again until they reached Klinan.

Since he intended on leading the troops on the ground, he planned to transfer to one of the destroyer’s right before going to FTL. In their battle plan, neither cruiser was scheduled to land. They were both acting as high cover, space response and the remote combat center.

After only a few hours from earth, Brian reported to Jake that the battleship had left orbit and was following in their wake. ALICE had projected that they would complete their work at about the same time the battleship reached the edge of the solar system.

Should their work be successful they would only be hours behind the force rather than days. Should they fail, then they would simply turn around and return home. Jake really wanted the additional firepower on site, as he had a suspicion the NeHaw had more up their sleeve than just a planetary harassment.

The cruisers were good for a three or four to one ratio against the NeHaw equivalent, the destroyers maybe even a little more. That made him feel better about the odds, but the battleship would really stack the odds in their favor.

All six destroyers were to act as delivery platforms, four loaded with marines and flyers from the 10
th
Calvary. They had split the flyers between all four to distribute the resources and reduce the risk should they lose a destroyer to fire. As all the marines were jump trained, the plan called for these four to act as airborne delivery. The other two needed to land to drop the assault vehicles.

The four airborne destroyers would also provide cover fire from above as necessary for both the jumpers and the landings. They could also go to space should more guests arrive to the party.

----*----

Over the next three days, the combat planning room in
Revenge
received a constant stream of Intel from the Klinan and Patti in Nevada. The images and data provided showed the Netite maintaining their separate offensives, laying waste to two of the Klinan communities.

What they didn’t take, they destroyed. Thankfully, most of the inhabitants had been evacuated, though there were a few instances where slow moving refuges were overrun and slaughtered where they cowered. Everyone was frustrated at their inability to react.

The Klinan had no forces to counter the advance. They even lacked an armed police force, as their population tended more toward the intellectual actions, than physical. Crimes would consist more of the white-collar variety, armed robbery or assault being nonexistent.

Jake and Sara practically lived in the planning room, only leaving for bathroom breaks and sleep. Tied into the room in Nevada, they had all the analysts working together. As before, Jake had them assemble multiple attack plans, only to have them ripped apart exposing their weaknesses.

When he wasn’t in active planning, Jake was also checking in with the troops on each of the destroyers. They had daily status calls with each of the platoon and squad leaders. He had them all running drills, rehearsing with the combat suits. He wanted them so familiar with the suits, it would feel like a second skin.

Abby and Joe’s people were another issue entirely. Most of Jake’s work there was keeping the troopers from antagonizing the marines. Apparently, there had been several incidents involving practical jokes and troopers denying any connection.  

Having seen it many times, it never ceased to amaze Jake how mixed service activities always had the same issues. Put the navy, army and marines in the same room and all havoc breaks loose. Point them at a common enemy, and they were all family. Three days was a long time to be sitting around waiting.

----*----

LeSoc was getting restless. His three ships had been sitting on the star side of the Klinan planetary orbit for a few cycles and so far, all they had witnessed was the destruction of Klinan cities. His heart sank as they watched the destruction of fine Klinan art, while the beasts plundered the basest treasures.

His early optimism of a quick settlement was dashed as they continued to sit and wait for the eventual call from High Council to collect the beasts and return home.

----*----

Brian was sitting on the bridge, watching their progress on his display. He was measuring the distance to the line that indicated the FTL transition line. When they hit the point where they were four hours to FTL, Jake wanted to transfer over to D-1, where his combat command unit was located. They had a small shuttle they borrowed from the battleship to perform the transfer. The rest of his planning team would remain on
Revenge
.

To accommodate all the additional personnel, his crew had been reduced to a two-shift rotation. This set them on 8 hours on, 8 hours off rotation.  This also allowed for more trained crew in the destroyers.

Independence
and the destroyers were all on the same schedule, the most experienced crew members spread throughout. The problem was his crew was the most experienced. Brian just hoped to recover those crewmembers once this emergency passed.

One interesting aspect of Jake going to ground was Brian had been assigned the fleet command. Should either of the NeHaw destroyers attempt to intervene in the ground assault, Brian was to take whatever action he deemed necessary. He was to defend his ships and the ground troops against any and all aggression.

This would free Sara up to focus on the resource management of the ground campaign.

----*----

Honan was in despair. The images continued to pour in showing the devastation. The loss of life was limited, but the loss of culture was irreplaceable. The humans were on their way, the unfortunate victim of a large planetary solar system, but wouldn’t come soon enough.

He wasn’t sure they would be able to stop the Netite anyway. It was one thing to engage an adversary in a ship-to-ship fight. The utter brutality of the Netite method of fighting was something else entirely. Unless their plan was to try to vaporize the communities, it would be necessary to engage them in a face-to-face confrontation.

Honan wasn’t aware of such an engagement in hundreds of megacycles, not since the Netite world had been discovered. Since that day, they had been sent to challenge many worlds. Not once had they failed in their mission. Besides, vaporization wouldn’t work anyway as the communities held underground tunnels and bunkers from the days before civilization took hold.