“I’ll need twelve hours to make my way to all three locations. I gave Chief B my comms channels for you to monitor. I will report every three hours. Wish me luck, Captain.”
Kelly shook his hand and walked him to the gangplank. A blast of warm moist air blew up into the quarterdeck as the gangplank lowered to the ground. He watched as the Fleet Reporting Officer, displaying another unknown skill, blended into the woods and disappeared.
Kelly brought up the gangplank and took the ship up and out to make his rendezvous with Admiral Minacci’s group. He dropped a communications relay halfway to the entrance so Alistair’s signal would carry out of the cluster.
Chapter Thirteen
Kelly rode the Admiral’s gig to the Golden Eagle for Admiral Minacci’s commander’s call. He thought it was a pretty cushy ride. He could have docked the Vigilant to the flagship, but Admiral Minacci insisted that he would send his gig instead. Kelly imagined the Golden Eagle’s captain didn’t trust his helmsman’s capabilities.
Upon reaching the flagship, Kelly was escorted by a young Marine second lieutenant to flag country. The Marine saluted him, opened the door for Kelly, and left once Kelly was inside. Admiral Minacci’s Executive Officer, Commander Oliver Digg, met Kelly just inside the door.
“Lieutenant Commander Blake, come in. The Admiral is held up, so we’re a little behind schedule. I always hate it when we come into a system and are able to receive broadband message traffic. Every bureaucrat in Fleet HQ wanting a piece of his time bombards the admiral with questions. The admiral will join us shortly. He was quite impressed with your report. Did you really land a man on the planet?”
“Yes, sir, I had a Fleet Reporting Officer embarked and he wanted to conduct a personal reconnaissance of the planet, in an attempt to locate the Debran women. He hopes to find them and move them to a place where we can pick them up and get them off planet before things heat up.”
Captain Digg tensed up slightly. “We can pick them up? Who do you mean?”
Kelly realized that Scout Force’s independent operating style sometimes grated on more traditional Fleet officers, so he chose his words carefully.
“Now that I am under the command of the 3rd ALG, ‘ we’ means the 3rd ALG.”
Commander Digg relaxed slightly and said, “Good, you guys tend to be a little too independent at times for our way of operating. For instance, Admiral Minacci would have preferred that you cleared landing your agent with him first.”
Kelly looked Commander Digg in the eye and said, “I didn’t come under 3rd ALG command until our rendezvous an hour ago. Up until then I was still operating under Scout Force orders, which were to assist Mr. Bennett with his investigations. That is exactly what I did. Mr. Bennett didn’t work for me. Under the terms of my orders I was actually working for him.”
CDR Digg backed up a half step and said, “Oh, I see. That explains a lot. I would appreciate a copy of your orders and any amendments to them.”
Kelly pulled out his pocket terminal and beamed them to CDR Digg’s terminal.
CDR Digg led him over to the table with the coffee and pastry and left him to go greet another arriving captain. Kelly fixed a cup of coffee and left the pastries alone. Another CDR came over to Kelly and introduced himself as CDR Mike Milton, the captain of the Landing Assault Carrier Yellow Jacket. His carrier had the heavy brigade embarked and the Special Operations Company. He thought Kelly might know the commander of his Spec Ops Company, Captain Mary Chen.
“Why, yes, Commander, I do know Mary Chen. We shared my cabin on one mission.”
CDR Milton laughed at that and said, “You’re a better man than I. Mary has put a plan together. She proposes that if and when your reporting officer finds the Debran women, you would transport one of her platoons down close to the location, they would secure the women and load them on your ship to bring them out of the combat area. The admiral has seen an initial proposal. He sent it back with questions. Her briefing is after this commander’s call. I’m sure the admiral will want you there to offer your expertise.”
Kelly agreed with CDR Milton and looked forward to the briefing. He was about to ask how CPT Chen was working out, when the admiral walked in and the room was called to attention. The admiral looked around and saw Kelly. He made a beeline to Kelly and pulled him away from CDR Milton.
“Have you heard from your man on the planet?”
“Yes, sir, he reported in just as we arrived here. He’s on his way to his first target. He should be there by now. He was covering ground at a good pace.”
“Good, keep me informed. I see you’ve met CDR Milton. Has he told you of his SOC’s proposal?”
“Yes, sir, he has. If we time it right and there are not too many enemy defenders, we can be in and out before they react. They should dress light. I was just down there and it’s hot and humid.”
Admiral Minacci laughed, which caused every eye not on them already to swivel in their direction.
Admiral Minacci called the room to order and they all moved into his briefing room. Kelly entered, went to take a seat in the back row in accordance with his rank and was pulled up and put in the first row by CDR Digg. He leaned close, whispered, “Admiral’s orders,” and walked away.
The admiral stood at the front of the room and activated the holographic projector. The sector came up in the projection. It was Kelly’s reconnaissance report.
Admiral Minacci started to brief the situation and expanded the projection to highlight the main avenue of approach and the pirate planet. It showed the locations of the early warning sensors, the newly seeded mines, and torpedo ship patrol routes. He zoomed in further to the surface of the sparsely populated planet and centered the projection over the main city.
Kelly thought that someone had done some good work in a short time. All the major roads were highlighted and identified by number for north-south streets and by letters for east-west streets. Security stations and government buildings were highlighted, as were the spaceport, Security HQ, Defense HQ, and the Government administrative HQ. The three Ascetic barracks were also highlighted. The admiral pointed out that the Ascetics appeared to be light forces only. He pointed out that his analysts saw no indication of heavy equipment, not even artillery.
This prompted some murmurs from the three Marine brigade commanders. The admiral had Kelly stand up.
“Ladies and Gentlemen allow me to introduce LCDR Kelly Blake of the Scout Ship Vigilant. We owe him and his crew for all the information you’ve just seen and loaded on your ship’s data systems.”
“Now that I have this information, my battle staff will be formulating my plan. I am favoring a direct assault from the entrance of the star cluster. I think my F-48s and MJ-9s can clear us a path through the mines, sensors, and torpedo ships. We bring up the plasma frigates and the A-76s to destroy all ships at the spaceport, soften up the Ascetics, and take out planetary defenses, if any. Then we land the 1st Brigade west of town and the 2nd Brigade east of town. The two of them push to link up and clear any hostiles in their path. 3rd Brigade will land its heavy units north of the Ascetic barracks and clear them off the ridgeline down into the valley, where 1st and 2nd brigades will be coming together. A platoon of the SOC will be embarked on the Vigilant to retrieve the Debran women, if the reporting officer currently on the planet’s surface locates them in time. The remainder of the SOC will assault the artificial moon to disable the space doors, trapping any ships inside. I will have plans out tomorrow first thing. Review them carefully and get your recommended changes back to me by 1200. I will issue my final order by 1800. We will attack just before local dawn day after tomorrow. Are there any questions?”
There were no questions, so the room was called to attention as he left. CDR Milton grabbed Kelly by the elbow and escorted him to follow the admiral. He was led to a smaller briefing room deeper in flag country. CPT Chen was already there. Her smile upon seeing Kelly lit up the room. She was just as beautiful and deadly as she was before.
“How you doing bunky, sir?” she said with a mischievous look on her face, as she vigorously shook his hand.
This got several strange looks from the three officers around the table. Kelly saw their looks and suggested CPT Chen should explain that they had shared a cabin on the Vigilant, when she and her platoon were embarked on
