Assault: The Globur Incursion Book 6, page 5
John saw Lieutenant Commander Miku coming across the room. She looked full of purpose in her dress uniform, and he tugged at the snug collar on his own dress blacks. The Fleet loved the dark uniforms. Even the Marines had their midnight blue.
Miku had few ribbons on her uniform, a sign of life at Fleet headquarters. John managed a wan smile as she arrived. “Well, Lieutenant Forest, it seems like things are winding down. We do not want to overstay. I would say this is another successful event for you. Thank you for managing to avoid insulting anyone important.”
John raised his eyebrows. “Well, ma’am, truth be told, sarcasm is an art form that some just do not appreciate.”
John caught a glint in Miku’s eyes. “That sarcasm of yours is weapons grade and should be kept locked down. I certainly do not need another explanation of your specialty ‘slow burn,’ Lieutenant.” Miku replied as she held his gaze evenly.
“Come on, Miku,” replied John casually with a warm grin, “that is my favorite. I have to get some enjoyment out of this, you know.”
It was Miku’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Really, Lieutenant? Insulting someone in such a way that they only realize it sometime later, preferably the next day? It all seems a bit childish—beneath someone of your stature.”
“I have asked you to call me John,” Forest replied, amused.
Miku sighed. “There are Fleet regulations, and that is what we follow here in the Albion system, at Fleet headquarters, Lieutenant.”
John ignored the last comment. “Besides,” he replied, “I think that my stature has been somewhat exaggerated. I ought to know.” He winked.
“Lieutenant,” answered Miku, “it seems your tour of goodwill and interviews is coming to an end, and you will shortly return to your duty station to continue the important work that awaits you.”
“Why don’t we grab a drink on the way back to quarters?” asked John. “We could swing into the officers’ mess. It has been a pretty busy couple of weeks, and I know almost nothing about you.”
“Not much to tell, Lieutenant,” Miku shot back, raising an eyebrow in way of an opening.
John could see that her curiosity was piqued. “Just one drink then?”
“Alright, Lieutenant,” replied Miku. “I’ll meet you there. I must thank our host and let them know we are departing. I also need to touch base with security.”
“OK, see you at the mess then,” replied John. He headed for the door and saw a man moving to intercept him. Damn, he thought, there are always those who linger.
The man was of average height but wore a business suit, standing out in this crowd of mostly Fleet officers. He had a glazed look. Different than the one of amazement John was used to seeing.
The man was fumbling inside his jacket as he approached. John’s augmentation let him know that the man was definitely intoxicated. His hand came out of his coat, holding a small jar. He twisted the lid off and flung the crimson contents at John.
“Goddamn warmonger!” he yelled as John’s enhanced reflexes and muscles allowed him to easily dodge the contents of the jar. The man held up his other hand, flashing the PFP symbol.
“The people will have peace! You can’t—” the man got out before John’s minder Sergeant Smith had him by the neck and lifted off the floor while Jones quickly locked the man’s wrists together.
Security arrived almost immediately. “We’ll take it from here,” said the leader of the security detail. Sergeant Smith gently set the man back down, and he caught his breath in big gulps.
“Assault! I was assaulted!” he blurted out before two security people dragged him away. The crimson fluid soaked into the carpet, and John’s augmentation told him it was synthetic blood.
John shrugged and gave a small nod to his Marine minders as he headed for the door. They formed up on him like they were flying a fighter mission.
Sergeant Smith reached the door and opened it, looking down the broad hallway. She held the door as John approached. “Quarters, sir?”
John smiled as he stepped into the hallway. “Pretty much. You can drop me off at the mess, right? It’s attached to the quarters and inside the Fleet facilities.”
“As you wish, sir,” deadpanned Sergeant Smith.
Smith and Jones hustled John into the grav car. The car had a driver and a separate passenger cab with seats facing forward and rear. Sergeant Smith sat beside John, and Jones sat facing him. They made the short ride in silence.
It was not the first time there had been a PFP sympathizer at an event or a reception, but the whole thing about tossing the crimson liquid at him was new. Blood?
The grav car set down in front of the officers’ mess connected to the transient officer’s quarters where John was staying.
“See you tomorrow, you two,” John said as the door slid open. “Stay out of trouble, you crazy kids,” he finished with a wink as he left the grav car.
He strode into the mess and ordered a glass of red wine. He found a seat in a small alcove as the automated system delivered his drink. John linked to the system and ordered a small cheese tray. Damn glad I remembered that I like wine and cheese, he thought.
He was just settled in nicely when Lieutenant Commander Miku appeared and sat across from him. “The People for Peace seem to be getting bolder,” she observed.
John shook his head. “That guy was drunk and harmless. But I don’t get why they want to toss that fake blood on people. It doesn’t stick to the uniform. It’s a pointless gesture.”
Miku shrugged. “They call it marking. Marking the warmongers. It is the latest wave of activism. One took a run at the grand admiral the other day.”
“What do you suppose happens to them?” asked John.
“You do not want to know,” replied the stony-faced Miku.
“I suppose that means the answer will piss me off, since I doubt they get time in detention.” John gazed at Miku. “What’s the story?”
Miku sighed as her drink arrived, white wine. “They usually get a warning. Some get fined for ‘public mischief’ if they hit the target or it was a second offense.”
“Hah,” John laughed in disgust. “And that guy claimed he was assaulted!”
“Mm,” replied Miku. “Sergeant Smith did use a minimum of force to subdue him, but he’s still likely to make a complaint. Many of these people are politically connected.”
“People are dying out on the rim,” John said grimly as his lip curled involuntarily into a sneer. “The fate of over a billion imperial citizens is unknown, and those clowns go around accusing Fleet people of starting the whole thing. It’s insane!”
Miku smiled. “As they said at the Academy, we are here to protect democracy, not to practice it.” She took a sip of her wine. “Perhaps we could turn the conversation to more pleasant matters?”
The cheese tray arrived. John picked up a piece and popped it in his mouth, chasing it with some wine. “Smoked. Delicious. Would you care to share my cheese tray, Miku? It wouldn’t hurt you to lighten up a bit. Always so intense. I get your job is tough, but you have to grab those good moments where you can. You know?”
“Oh, I do know,” Miku replied. John saw a glint in Miku’s eyes as she picked up a piece of cheese, taking a small bite. “I was hoping we could share more than a cheese tray…John.”
***
Doctor Umgabe was coated in sweat as he worked in the deserted lab. Fleet heavy fighters were tough, and the armor on this one seemed especially so. It was so resistant to the cutters that Umgabe had some technicians take the time to cut off smaller samples for analysis. The cutter did work, but things went much slower.
The people who had cut John Forest from the wrecked fighter had only had to cut away some twisted shreds of metal, and they had reported it was a standard heavy fighter. When Umgabe was ready to access the remaining torpedo lodged in the launch tube, they had technicians come in to carefully cut into the fighter to remove the entire launch tube assembly. The tubes ran deep into the fighter, near the pilot compartment.
While the damage had exposed even the highly protected and armored pilot compartment, the torpedo tube they were after was in an only moderately damaged section of the fighter. Technicians had been all day trying to carefully cut out the torpedo tube assembly. By removing the entire assembly, they could then use finer tools to remove the actual torpedo.
Umgabe had approached the task with his usual methodical precision. It was like an archaeological dig. Everything was logged and tagged. Every component had to be examined. He did not want to risk further damaging or destroying something that might prove critical to his research.
He had spent his entire first day crawling around the fighter alone, noting its key differences. The original scans were rudimentary as the fighter had been quarantined since before his arrival. Umgabe had now had
detailed scans done from many angles.
The fighter did indeed have different weapons than current Fleet fighters. What it mounted were obviously not lasers, and there were two kinds of beam projectors. It was also obvious that the shields had been modified, but exactly how was unclear. Almost everything else just looked standard.
Umgabe’s second full day had just ended, and he had been supervising technicians as they began to dismantle the fighter. Simply cutting their way to the torpedo would not do. They had to be methodical, and Umgabe was using his implant to access fighter schematics as they went. They had encountered some components that did not match the information he had. He tagged them to examine later.
Umgabe was the only person on the base who knew where the fighter had actually come from or how it had appeared. Everyone else on the project had been told it was a single, highly experimental craft and that it was never intended to go into battle as it had.
A row of four standard heavy fighters sat in their cradles within the lab. They were there for reference purposes and hopefully to be modified to match the capabilities of the mystery fighter that he studied. He was on the scaffold on the upper quadrant of the spherical craft. The torpedo they were after was in the upper port tube, so they had begun by going in from the top of the fighter.
Perhaps tomorrow, thought Umgabe. Perhaps tomorrow, we will be able to remove the tube assembly and begin our investigation.
He had received a communique from Vice Admiral Stukov that the pilot, John Forest, would be coming to the base, probably leaving the Albion system within the next few days.
What might he tell me? This pilot, with no memory, wondered Umgabe. At least he will be authorized to work inside the lab. For now, though, the torpedo is the key.
Like most scientists, Umgabe had an intense curiosity about most things, and he knew he must seek to understand the thing before he could replicate it. He climbed down from the ring of scaffolding surrounding the wrecked fighter, careful not to catch his clothing on the jagged metal that seemed to be all over the hull.
He walked over to the nearest table and pulled up the detailed three-dimensional scan of the fighter he had made. He had the AI trying to deconstruct the damage so it could reconstruct what the fighter would have looked like before the damage, which was everywhere.
The AI had shaded the areas that were certain green. The areas that were more than 70% correct were yellow. Just plain logical guesses were shaded red. There was a lot of red and yellow. Umgabe supposed that was because they were using the design specification in the databank as a template, and they had no real idea if that was correct.
He turned and looked at the fighter. It had once been like a shiny ball bearing 20 meters across. Now it looked like a tin foil ball that had been clawed by a wild animal. It was a miracle that the reactor had not overloaded and destroyed the whole thing.
What they ask may be impossible, Umgabe thought. The quantum cannon was a great leap, but the Globur already had something like that. The new torpedoes are much stealthier, but they have had mixed results. Much is at stake. By the time Lieutenant Forest gets here, we should have freed the torpedo tube. Perhaps seeing the weapon, he will remember something helpful.
Chapter 5
Rear Admiral Pang was glad to be back in the loop, running between the Chard and Mongolia systems, following the system defense plan strategy first proposed by Rear Admiral Jones. Her ships had been repaired and resupplied. Things felt stable for the first time in a long time.
Perhaps the danger has passed, she thought idly as they came out of quantum drive just outside the Chard system. The last Fleet intelligence estimates indicated that there had been as many as five Globur battle groups, each anchored by a carrier.
Three of these battlegroups had been destroyed or heavily damaged with major ship losses. TF13H had claimed one in the Ming system and one in the Mongolia system. TF15 had destroyed one in the Markus Nebula. Fleet Intelligence thought that only two battlegroups remained and was once again looking at reconnaissance missions to the occupied systems to determine where the Globur battlegroups actually were.
There were a lot of places they could be, but it did not make sense for them to attack if they had lost 60% of their forces. Known forces, Pang correct herself.
It had been weeks since the battle in the Mongolia system, and a Fleet science team was already scouring the Globur wreckage looking for insights into their weapons and technology. All the orbital platforms had been reloaded. Unfortunately, there were not enough capital missiles to reload the two platforms that had mounted them in the last battle.
Replacement Marines had been sent to replenish the losses within TF13H. The garrisons in both systems had also received the new mark Marine combat suits. Lieutenant Colonel Blucher, from the Khan garrison, had suffered over 50% casualties, including just over 30% KIA in the fight to eradicate the Globur from TF13H ships. Now the governor was demanding all the equipment he could possibly get his hands on.
There was talk of Vice Admiral Stukov traveling to the rim to hand out a boxful of decorations that had been approved for those of TF13H and the Khanian Marine garrison. They had been using the older suits, and it had cost them.
Tales of incredible bravery were common and spreading rapidly through the task force. Many of the crew on Dixmude were in awe of Rear Admiral Pang as she had organized her flag staff and people they found along the way to counterattack against the Globur, driving them back from main engineering. She had ordered them to build a wall of Globur corpses when she saw how effective their armor was against their own beam weapons.
They had held out. It had been close. The Marine force from Khan that arrived to rescue them had managed to finally break through and destroy the Globur stronghold in the capital missile bay. Most of Dixmude’s crew had been wounded in the fight.
There were dozens of stories of ingenuity that had helped the crews repel the Globur or hold on until help came. One of the engineering staff had figured out how to keep the accumulator in their augmentation charged so they could use the weapons built into their body without running out of power.
It seemed that the only unwounded crew had ended up being trapped in compartments far from the fighting when the power was cut. Right now, it was looking like they were the lucky ones.
“Detection! Quantum track, inbound,” the scanner tech on the flag bridge yelped.
Pang watched the flag plot as it pinged softly, updating the view. The detection was out near the far edge of the Markus Nebula. She stared intently at the gray blob, waiting for it to resolve.
The freighter Alamo had their only quantum-drive detector, and the data was slow in coming. The newer carriers and capital ships all mounted a detector so they could triangulate and together get a much better picture to analyze such tracks more quickly. The ships in TF13H were not an entirely new design but modified from existing ship designs. Ships in TF15 and onward were an entirely new class.
Pang frowned. Not the same as before but probably hostile, she thought as a sour look crossed her face.
The flag plot tracked time until TF13H could use their quantum drive. They had not been at the Chard system long, so the counter read just over 14.5 hours.
The track on the flag point was beginning to resolve. It was not headed for Chard. It was another track on target for the Mongolia system. Since it was near the edge of their range for detection, the mass readings were jumping all over the place.
Pang started to feel a sinking sensation. She linked with the ship’s AI and ran the numbers. The transit time to the Mongolia system was 20 hours and 56 minutes, give or take a few minutes, depending on where they transitioned to quantum drive, plus the time in the Chard system to get to that transition point.
The ship’s AI confirmed it. They were 35 hours and 21 minutes to the Mongolia system at their best speed. They were currently heading away from the Mongolia system, having just transitioned out of Qdrive almost 90 minutes ago. There was no way to quickly reverse course. They had too much velocity for that. They were committed to the parabolic loop of the system while their drives charged.
If it was the Globur, they would be well into their attack by the time Pang’s task force arrived. That was even if they held up short of the system, following the pattern they had shown before. She had doubts that even the enhanced planetary defenses could stand up to a Globur battle group.
It could be an opportunity, thought Pang. If the battlegroup is committed inside the gravity well, or even have assumed orbit around Khan, we can easily take them on. Problem is they will certainly see us coming and have plenty of warning. We won’t catch them just out of quantum drive, like last time. They may be there to intercept us this time.
Pang could not shake the feeling she was missing something. It was not a good feeling. The track on the flag plot was clearly headed for the Mongolia system, and it was clearly hostile. The AI had helpfully tagged the track as red and estimated the arrival time at the Mongolia system.
