Tipping Point in the Alliance War (9 page)

After
three days in warp-space, the Courageous abruptly drops into real-space. 
The 2
^nd
shift Bridge Crew sounds the Battle Stations alarm and the
crew scrambles to their positions. Captain Niles is on the Bridge in less than
30 seconds, and observes the Confederation ships on the forward view
screen.  

First
Officer, Lieutenant
Znnu
, is barking orders and
positioning the Courageous for battle.  The Captain just observes and
waits – he needs to get up to speed, before assuming command.  Courageous
is outnumbered and surrounded.

“How
did they know where to find us?” he wonders.  “No time for that now,” he thinks. 

“Why
do you suppose they haven’t opened fire?” he asks Lieutenant
Znnu
.  “They could have destroyed us, as we were
emerging.”

“I
don’t know, sir” she answers.  “Perhaps they are waiting for the Brutus.”

“Quite
possible.” responds the Captain.  “I am assuming command now, Lieutenant
Znnu
.  You use the sensors to sweep the vicinity for
the Brutus, and allow Tactical to concentrate on the defensive systems.” 

“Aye
sir,
and you have the Bridge.” Lieutenant
Znnu
responds.

The
Captain continues musing; “I expect that the Brutus observed our unplanned exit
from warp, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her nearby.” 

“We
are being hailed by one of the Confederation vessels,” reports Lieutenant
Strass
, the Logistics Officer.

“Put
them on the view screen.”

“Captain
Niles,” the Confederation Admiral says.  “Turn over the Brutus and we will
set you free.  We will give you time to evacuate your crew from the
Brutus, before we destroy it.  You have 10 minutes to decide - the clock
starts now.”   The image of the Admiral fades away and is replaced by
the image of a clock, which is ticking down from 10 minutes.

“Well
that gives us 10 minutes to plan,” comments the Captain.  “Fifteen ships
to one.  Not good odds, but they will know that they have been in a
fight.”

 He
is wishing that he still had his full complement of 200 Space Marines and their
launches, and he wonders if the Confederation Admiral knows that the Brutus was
boarded by the Marines.

“Lieutenant
Wansat
,” the Captain says, as he presses the comm
button, for the commander of the 50 man Marine detachment.

“Here
sir,” comes the immediate response.

“You
have 4 launches Lieutenant.  I need for your Marines to crew those
launches and go out as boarding parties.  If you can be ready to exit in
less than 9 minutes, we will be able to provide you with a ‘cover fire’, as a
distraction.  At that time, I would expect all of their attention to be on
the Courageous.  I suggest that you leave the ship at maximum acceleration
and make it look as if you are trying to escape. That ruse may convince the
Confederation Captains that you are not a threat, and might give you an
opportunity to get around behind them.

“Yes
sir,” the Marine says.  “I’ll call when ready. 
Wansat
out.”

“Lieutenant
Znnu
, get a light show ready as a diversion - make it
extra special,” the Captain orders.  “And after you finish that task, I
want you to take charge of the defensive systems, and let Tactical concentrate
on the offense.”

“Aye sir.”

“Tactical,
fire at will when the ‘light show’ starts,” the Captain says. 
“Concentrate your fire on one ship at a time, and begin with the ship that is
closest to us.  Perhaps we can hide behind its carcass.”

“Aye
sir.”

………………………The
clock ticks down to less than one minute, and still there is no word from the
Marines.  The Captain is thinking of alternative scenarios, but none of
them is as good as getting the Marines out before the battle starts.

“Ready
sir,” announces the Marine.  “We will go when the lights start.”

“Lights
on
Znnu
!” the Captain says quickly, and with a little
extra urgency.  

The
‘light show’ emanating from the Courageous, explodes in all directions, as if
there has been an explosion on the Courageous
..
 

(The
last ‘light show’ had aided in capturing the Brutus.  That success had
provided incentive for the Bridge Officers to brainstorm ‘light show’
techniques.  They have really outdone themselves this time.  The
Captain will have to complement them on their excellent work - if he lives long
enough to tell them.)

“Incoming,”
warns the First Officer.  “All ships targeting our Engineering
section.  Shields down to 70 % ………… 60% …………50%. 

“Rotate
Helm - in all directions.” orders the Captain.

“Rotating,”
says the Helm

The
Courageous is spinning and rotating in an effort to spread the damage over the
entire ship.  The ship is heaving and lurching like a bucking
bronco.  Alarms and damage-control warnings are sounding like the
background music to a concert of explosions.  “This concert won’t last
long,” the Captain thinks.

Suddenly,
the incoming barrage diminishes and almost stops.  The Bridge Crew looks
for the reason, but it is hard to focus with the Courageous spinning and
rotating.  

“Stop
the spin, Helm” orders Captain Niles.

“Aye
sir.”

“It’s
the Brutus!” exclaims Navigation.  “She must have been cloaked.”

“Look
at the launches!” says Logistics.

All of
the weapons fire from the Confederation fleet is now focused on the Brutus,
which is hunkered down - hiding behind the flaming wreckage of an enemy ship,
which it has just destroyed.  The Courageous is being largely ignored and
the enemy doesn’t seem to consider the swarm of Marine launches to be a
threat.  A few launches have been damaged and two have been destroyed, but
most of them are quietly making their way to the Confederation ships. 
Apparently, the Admiral considers the launches to be ‘life boats’.

The
Courageous bridge crew rejoices at the sight of the Alliance Space Marine
assault-launches.  There are not just the ones from the Courageous – the
ones from the Brutus are there, also.  “Return to the battle,” orders the
Captain.  “We need to distract some of those enemy ships.  Target all
weapons on the Engineering sections of various Confederation ships, and be
careful to avoid hitting our launches.” 

“Helm,
move in closer to the Admiral’s vessel.” 

“Tactical,
fire the rail guns and launch missiles at the Admiral’s Flag Ship. 
Distract him, so that he doesn’t have time to figure out what is happening.”

“Aye
sir”

“Aye
sir”

The
Brutus is taking a beating.  The hate and anger of the Confederation Navy
is blinding their leadership to the danger that the Marine launches pose, and
they are paying only cursory attention to the Courageous.  There were 4
launches from the Courageous and 12 more from the Brutus.  There are 11
remaining.  A couple of them are already attached to Confederation ships
and the Marines will be aboard in minutes. 

“Look,”
says the Captain.  “One of the launches is on the Admiral’s Flagship.”

***

The
battle for the Flagship

“Hurry!”
growls Marine Captain
Baarg
. 

She
has selected the Confederation flagship as the target for her assault-team, and
she has picked a spot near the Command and Control Center as the point of
ingress.

 
The Marine Captain is feeling a rush of adrenalin, a heightened sense of
awareness, and pleasure from the release of dopamine that her brain has just
discharged.  Selective breeding has created a 350 pound, 7.5 foot tall
minstock
warrior, who is eager for battle and is longing
for some hand-to-hand combat.  To make her even more lethal, the Alliance
Navy has equipped her with a plethora of munitions, and with full body armor -
to help her to get in close enough so that she can satisfy her blood-lust.

The
assault-launch has magnetically attached to the flagship’s hull and the Marines
are making fast work of cutting through the lightly armored hull. 

(The
Confederation ships rely primarily on their superior shields for defense, so
their ship designers didn’t see the need for a lot of armor.  That makes
their vessels much less expensive to build, but makes them vulnerable to attack
by boarding.  Their thin armor makes their ships almost defenseless if
their shields fail.)

The
minstock
warrior and her 9 human Armored Space Marines are
headed for the Command and Control Center, in an attempt to capture the
vessel.  At a minimum, their assault should disrupt the Confederation
Admiral and should sew confusion among the enemy forces.

Soon
the hull has been breached and Sgt. Abdul drops a camera-pod through the
hole.  There is no armed response to the intrusion of the camera-pod, and
a 360 degree view shows an empty room.

With
her finger on the trigger, Captain
Baarg
drops into
the Flagship and finds herself inside of a conference room.  She does a
visual sweep of the room and determines that there are no enemy combatants and
no explosives in the room. 

“Everyone
come down,” she calls, as she opens the conference room door and checks the
hallway for threats.  Finding no resistance, she orders her squad to form
up and to follow her, as she moves into the corridor and toward the bow of the
ship.

(Ordinarily
the 10 person squad would leave 1 or 2 Marines behind to secure the launch, in
order to insure that the Marines have a way to escape if things ‘go south’.
 Captain
Baarg
is taking all of her personnel
with her, because she doesn’t see retreat as an option. 
Either the
boarding parties will be successful, or all of
the Alliance forces are going to die in this battle – there can be no retreat.)

“Forget
about the Comm Center – let them call for help,” she growls.  “We are
going to cut off the Bridge so that they can’t get any reinforcements.”

“There
are 3 corridors leading forward, and then they funnel down to 1 corridor close
to the Bridge.  I want 2 man teams in each corridor, to keep the security
teams at bay while my team attacks the Bridge.  We will follow this
corridor forward until we reach a connecting tunnel, and then we will split
up.  Go, go, go,” she says as the runs down the corridor toward the
Bridge.

The
Marines pass unarmed Confederation sailors during their run through the
corridors, and Captain
Barrg
kills them, with a knife,
as she passes, so that they can’t report the boarding.  When the Marines
reach a port/starboard connecting tunnel, the Captain says: “Clawson, Sutton,
Abdul, and Ying, you’re with me.  I’ll drop two of you off where the
corridors funnel down to 1.  The rest of you pair-up and barricade these 3
forward/aft corridors. Go, go, go,” Captain
Baarg
growls, as she runs toward the bow of the ship.
 

Alarms
and announcements begin to sound - the leadership aboard the Confederation
warship has realized that they have been boarded.  Now it becomes even
more imperative that the Marines move quickly.

When
Captain
Baarg’s
team reaches the junction where the 3
corridors funnel down to 1, they encounter their first armed resistance. A
barricade has been hastily erected in front of the single corridor, which leads
to the Bridge. The bulkhead door is closed and armored security forces are crouched
behind the barricade.  Those Confederation forces open fire with laser
rifles as soon as they hear the Marines approaching.

Captain
Baarg
rolls a camera-pod around the corner, in order
to reconnoiter the enemy defenses.  That camera-pod is soon destroyed by
laser rifle fire, but not before Captain
Baarg
records the images of the enemies’ defensive position.  A review of that
recorded video tells her that the Confederation armor and weaponry are inferior
to the Alliance Space Marine equipment.  These security forces are
equipped to quell a mutiny, but not an assault by Armored Space Marines.

“Satchel
– set for 5 seconds,” she says as she reaches behind her.  Lieutenant
Clawson was expecting the request and he quickly sets the timer on the satchel-bomb,
and places the handle in the
minstock
warrior’s
hand.  Captain
Barrg
swings her arm and the
satchel around the corner, and launches it toward the barricade.  ‘Go
after the debris,” she instructs her group.

(Heaving
the heavy demolition satchel the 50 feet to the enemy barricade would have been
difficult for a human, but is child’s play for the 350 pound Captain.  The
satchel bounces off of the closed bulkhead and lands behind the barricade
before exploding.)

“Go,
go, go,” she says, right after the debris from the explosion passes their
position.  She jumps out into the connecting corridor and covers the 50
feet to the barricade in just a few leaps, only to find dismembered bodies and
a lot of blood.