Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) (34 page)

“I
take it you saw what just happened?” asked Janicot.

“Yes,
sir. They certainly took their time jumping, didn’t they?”

“Yes,
they did. I wonder if they took so long because they fired missiles. I’m
considering ordering planetary radars to go active. What’s your opinion on
that?”

Palmgren
hesitated. If the enemy ships were still in the vicinity, that kind of scan
would reveal the locations of all boats and ships to them.

“Given
where those ships were before they jumped, I suspect they detected us
optically, so a radar scan wouldn’t tell them something they didn’t already
know about us, but they could also potentially see all our cruisers too.”

“I
agree. That’s the risk, but if they’ve fired at your boats…” he didn’t need to
finish that thought. As long as the missile boats were hovering over the
Capital, it was safe from orbital bombardment and invasion. The FEDs had to
eliminate that protective umbrella if they were to have any hope of pacifying
Sparta.

“We
could scan with our own radars instead. If their ships are still beyond the
zone boundary, they won’t detect our scans, Admiral,” said Palmgren.

“But
your scans aren’t powerful enough to detect them until they get a lot closer.
On the other hand, Excaliber is still close enough to detect them if their
ships go to active scanning. If we know for certain that there are missiles on
their way down, then your boats will know when to expect them.”

“Yessir,
I agree. Excaliber should scan now.”

“Okay,
Commodore. Thank you for your input. CSO out.” Turning to the Duty Officer,
Janicot said, “Order Excaliber to actively scan towards Sparta.”

It
took almost a full minute before the results of Excaliber’s radar scanning
reached Ops. The main display pinged, and Janicot saw a flickering yellow icon
with a number inside that changed every time the icon disappeared and then
reappeared.

“What
the hell?” he muttered. He saw that the Duty Officer was already checking with
one of his staff. When he was done talking, he looked at Janicot.

“The
return radar signals are so weak that Excaliber’s equipment is having trouble
deciding if there’s anything really there or not. Whatever those things are,
they must be very small.”

Janicot
shook his head. “Or they’re missiles that are using the same stealth technology
that makes their ships invisible to radar. We have to assume that’s the case.
Send a text message to Commodore Palmgren as follows. Begin active radar
scanning now. As soon as you have contact, even if intermittent, attempt to intercept
with AMMs. Maintain position unless ordered otherwise. CSO.” By the time he was
finished dictating the message, he saw that the flickering icon was now gone
altogether. If those really were missiles, with standard acceleration, it would
be approximately another ten minutes before the missile boat radars would have
any chance of detecting them. Given what he had just witnessed, he would expect
that the boats wouldn’t see anything until the missiles got a lot closer than
that. Hopefully, the closer they got, the stronger the return radar signal
would be, with a better chance for the anti-missile missiles to hit them.
Janicot took some comfort from the fact that some of the boats were carrying
third generation AMMs. Unfortunately, none of them were equipped with
anti-missile lasers. Retro-fitting the armored hulls with lasers would have
created spots in the hull where there was no armor, and that had been deemed to
be too risky.

With
ten minutes left before standard missiles would be expected to hit the missile
boats, there was still no radar contact at all, and that worried Janicot. All
101 boats were using their radars now. In fact, Palmgren had ordered his boats
to co-ordinate their radar scans so that they were all scanning at exactly the
same time, thereby effectively creating one very wide radar beam, and still
there was nothing.

When
time to impact was down to five minutes, the Duty Officer came over to Janicot
and said, “Maybe the boats should shift position so that the missiles miss,
Admiral.”

Janicot
smiled sadly and shook his head. “If those missiles miss the boats, they’ll
keep right on accelerating on the same vector, and they’ll hit the Capital
instead. No…those boats have to stay right where they are, Lieutenant.” The now
horrified Duty Officer turned and walked back to his previous position.

With
less than a minute left before estimated time of impact, Palmgren called
Janicot. “Admiral, I request permission to maneuver my boats to new locations.
If we can get a better angle on the radar emissions—“

Janicot
cut him off with a resigned tone to his voice. “Negative, Commodore. Your boats
must remain exactly where they are. You can’t let those missiles get past you
and hit the Capital. If you can’t stop them with AMMs, then your boats have to
take the hits. Do you understand, Commodore?”

There
was a pause. “Underst—“

Janicot
had been watching the display during the conversation. He saw the green icon
with the number 101 inside it be consumed by the bright flash that the tactical
computers generated as a way of portraying a massive amount of radiation and
electro-magnetic pulse energy from multiple fission explosions. When the flash
faded, the icon was gone. Janicot felt a physical pain in his body as his mind
registered the magnitude of what had just happened. Over two thousand men and
women had just been vaporized. Even in his stunned state, a part of his
awareness took note of the fact that none of the FED missiles had missed. If
any had, the city would have been hit by now, and they would have felt the
concussion wave even down here in Ops.

Janicot
looked around the Ops Center. Except for the occasional hum or click from the
equipment, the room was dead quiet as the staff, who were manning their
consoles, attempted to come to terms with what had just happened. Everyone knew
what this disaster meant. If they couldn’t see the FED ships or their missiles,
what hope did they have that the eleven cruisers beyond the zone boundary could
stop those FED ships now?

Janicot
knew that he had to respond. He quickly walked over to the Communications
Station. The woman manning the station had begun to sob quietly. Janicot put
his hand  on her shoulder and when she looked  up at him, he said in a gentle
voice, “I need to speak with the Chancellor right now. Can you set that up for
me, Lieutenant?” She nodded, unable to speak. Janicot heard the connections
being made over his headset.

“Chancellor
Belloc here.”

“Nathan,
it’s Mykhel,” said Janicot. Normally he wouldn’t call the Chancellor by his
first name in front of others, but protocol wasn’t important now.

“How
bad is it?” asked Belloc.

“We
just lost all our missile boats. The FEDs have developed stealth missiles.
Radar won’t detect them, which means anti-missile defenses are useless. Our
cruisers are sitting ducks and have no way of targeting the enemy ships. I
think I should order them to head for the rally point now, Nathan.”

“That’s
why you kept them out beyond the zone boundary, for just this kind of
situation. Do what you think is best, Admiral. Should we expect troops to land
soon?”

“Stand
by, Nathan.” Janicot turned to the woman at the Com Station. “Lieutenant, send
the Omega signal to all cruisers.”

“Y-Yes,
sir,” came the anguished reply. Satisfied that the cruisers would soon be out
of harm’s way, Janicot turned his attention back to the Chancellor.

“I
honestly don’t know the answer to that question, Nathan. We’ve only seen signs
of three enemy ships, and they’re clearly warships. If they brought troop
transports with them, they’re keeping their distance. I recommend that your
office issue a public announcement that a major battle has taken place and that
we’ve suffered serious losses, plus the fact that there may be further actions
by FED forces. I’ll put all military ground units on alert and send the fast
courier to Zanzibar. I don’t see that we can do anything else right now.”

“I
don’t either, Mykhel. We gave it our best shot. It’s all up to Drake and the
Brain Trust now. I’ll arrange for the announcement, and you go ahead with the
alert and the courier. Belloc out.”

With
the Chancellor no longer on the line, Janicot asked the Com Officer to connect
him with the pilot of the fast courier.

“Lieutenant
Morgan here, Admiral. I’m aware of what’s happened. I can lift off in five
minutes.”

“Very
good, Morgan. Your orders are very simple. Get to Zanzibar as fast as you can,
and tell Commodore Drake what’s happened here. I want you to micro-jump as soon
as you can to get away from Sparta and then proceed to Zanzibar from there. Any
questions?”

“No
questions, Admiral.”

“In
that case, carry on, Morgan. CSO out.”

Janicot
watched the courier lift off five minutes later. By then all the cruisers had
jumped away, and still there was no sign of the FED ships.

Chapter Twenty:

Day
151/2549

A
courier arrived in Zanzibar orbit from Sparta and immediately began
transmitting a text message. It was so shocking that Drake had to read it
twice.

Janicot
to Drake. All, repeat all, missile boats have been destroyed by radar invisible
FED warships using stealthy missiles. It’s only a matter of time before they
land troops. All our cruisers are on their way to the Rally Point. You are now
the Acting Chief of Space Operations for the System States Union. Operation
Blowback is now our only hope. Proceed as you think best. Good luck. Janicot.

He
didn’t want to believe that over a hundred missile boats could be wiped out
that easily, but if the FEDs were using stealthy missiles, then that would
explain it. The news still hurt. He knew many of the officers and crew on those
boats personally. Now he was the ACSO in charge of Blowback. He shook his head.
What a stupid name for a military operation, especially a desperate one like
this. If it had been up to him, he would have called it Operation Payback! God
damn the Federation for imposing their will on his planet! In spite of his
anger, he managed to become aware of a rational thought. If he didn’t like the
name of the Operation, then he could just change it. He was the new ACSO after
all. So Payback it was. That decision made him feel a bit better. He checked
the ship status display on the wall of his small office. One carrier had been
converted to the new hyper-drive and was already ferrying the first batch of
engineers and technicians to the colony on Vril, where they would set up
temporary accommodations for the rest of the Brain Trust. Two more carriers
were next in line for conversion, and the other two were on their way here. Two
freighters were also waiting for their turn to be upgraded, and Drake knew
there were more coming, along with 11 cruisers. That was a lot of ships that
had to be upgraded before the FEDs got here, not to mention the conversion of
courier ships. But he wasn’t so concerned about them. Upgrading their
hyper-drives took a lot less time than modifying the bigger ships.

He
checked the projected timetable again. As more and more cargo-carrying ships
were converted, the pace of the operation would pick up speed. In three more
months, all the scientists, technicians and their families would be on Vril, or
on their way there. His Space Force people would stay on Zanzibar until the
last possible moment to arrange for the transfer of all the equipment and
supplies that they’d need to set up a brand new colony somewhere from scratch.
That brought his thinking back to where they would go. P2 had made a
recommendation that was stunning in its audacity. It was a surveyed planet that
was mostly too cold, with only a small amount of land where the climate was
adequate for farming. That lack of expansion potential was the reason why it
had never been colonized.  What was audacious about this particular planet was
that it was in a star system deep inside Federation territory. That meant that
P2 was essentially proposing a variation of the Midgard strategy. That made
Drake uneasy. Checking all surveyed but supposedly uninhabited planets within
Federation territory might not be Majestic’s first priority, but Drake had to
believe that the giant brain would get around to it sooner or later, and the
new colony needed lots and lots of time to develop the technology and then
build the infrastructure needed to take on the Federation militarily again.
Some of the time estimates were so long that Drake himself wouldn’t live to see
that war. In any event, gambling on the hide-in-plain-sight strategy again was
just too risky in his opinion. As soon as more couriers were converted, the
plan was to send them out beyond the limits of Human Explored Space to do some
scouting. His Astrogation people had identified a cluster of stars part way
into the void between this spiral arm and the neighboring Sagittarius Arm that
contained a higher than normal percentage of yellow or white stars where an
Earth-like planet would be the most comfortable. That cluster was a long way
away, even with the new technology, but it was also highly unlikely that the
Federation would explore that far out with their older technology for perhaps a
century or more. If and when a courier found a planet that seemed to be
colonisable, it would bring word back to Vril, and a detailed survey mission
would be sent. If that checked out, then one huge fleet of ships would
transport the entire Brain Trust and all their equipment and supplies to the
new planet. It was going to be an all or nothing endeavour. Either everyone in
the Brain Trust would get away or no one would, but that wouldn’t be the end of
the evacuation.