The third Elder chimed in, “Very well, Shadow Leader, where do you plan to be during the battle?”
“Elder, I will join the 5th Battle Group. It will arrive within 12 hours of the start of the battle and will be the defensive force to hold off any Human counterattack while the 27th mops up the last of the Human resistance. I will be on the Shadow Scout Destroyer, J’Fawd. Shadow Force has put it at my disposal for this operation. I will join the 5th Battle Group as they pass here in two hours.”
“Go then, Shadow Leader. May the killing spirit of the K’Rang lead you to victory. Prepare to assume governorship of the Human world with our blessing. You have earned this honor. Try not to destroy too much of the essential infrastructure. We will need it. It is less expensive to modify the Human facilities to our needs than to build them from the ground up.”
The Shadow Leader swelled with pride at the honor, bowed, and left the audience chamber. A governorship was much more than he had ever hoped for. It put him in the line for promotion to the nobility. Now all he had to do was sweep aside the Humans on G’Dranu.
Preparations for the upcoming patrol had consumed most of Kelly’s very long day. The captain was spending more and more time at Scout Force HQ with the admiral lately, and that left the burden on Kelly. The chiefs were a great help, but there were many decisions that required Timmon’s okay, but couldn’t wait, so Kelly practiced the age old technique of “You bet your bars.”
It required deciding things for the captain and hoping you got it right. The captain kept telling him that he had complete faith in Kelly and just to use his own judgment. He told Kelly to make decisions on his own, without thinking what would the captain do. LCDR Timmons kept certain matters of command authority under his exclusive purview, but those had mainly to do with disciplinary matters that only the captain of the ship could exercise.
Kelly found the initial decisions to be nerve racking, but he was becoming accustomed to it. He no longer provided detailed briefings of what he had decided during the day to Timmons when he returned in the evenings. The captain trusted him.
The next day, the captain went off to Scout Force HQ as usual. Kelly was beginning to worry. He could tell that something big was up. He had noticed tension building in LCDR Timmons’ face for several days. Kelly searched the intel reports and found nothing there that would cause such worry. Of course he didn’t have access to all the information. Strict need to know was observed in the Fleet. He had gotten access to close hold information enough in his service time to know there was a lot more out there.
After Kelly returned from lunch, Chief Pennypacker caught him at the bottom of the ramp, “Sir, Captain said for you to report to HQ as soon as you got back. He said not to bother to change.”
Kelly looked down at his coveralls, decided they were clean enough and headed to HQ. LTJG Taylor him met at the door. “Good to see you again, Kelly. Follow me, will you? The briefings have already started.”
Kelly entered the command conference room to find the captains and execs of all the in-port Scout Ships. The captains were at the main table and the execs in the theater seats in the back. Kelly took a seat at the end of an open row.
Admiral Craddock was at the front speaking, “Fleet intel says that the K’Rang are massing their forces near three of their main worlds. Fleet thinks they are going to try an assault into the Scutum Sector in 30 to 60 days. A data device recovered by the Vigilant on a K’Rang merchant ship, a copy of that data found on New Amsterdam, and another K’Rang data device also brought to us by the Vigilant, finally have been decoded. It was a particularly crafty code hidden in some partial schematics. The data in the code gives all Galactic Republic defenses from the Scutum Sector to here and beyond.”
“Some of our agents in the K’Rang Empire have gotten word out that the K’Rang have been building large numbers of the torpedo ships that the Vigilant came up against. In addition, they have created a small fighter drone that is controlled remotely from a mothership held to the rear of their battle formations. Each of these motherships carries 100 of these drones and pilots capable of operating up to 30 drones at a time. Our agents tell us they are probably on a par with our F-48s. Unlike our fighters, though, they carry a large antimatter charge warhead in their nose that can cut through our capital ships’ shields and armor plating. They are both fighter and anti-ship missile.”
“Now for our plan. Fleet is reconstituting the 15th Battle Fleet. It will consist of seven Carrier Battle Groups. The 19th Battle Fleet will be brought forward, with an equal consist. They will become the 1st Combined Fleet under Admiral Chang. It will be the first major test of the transporter ring that’s orbiting over our heads. The technicians are working feverishly at this time to increase the diameter of the ring so that it can transport a carrier. We should know in a day or two if this will work. If so, we will have a nasty surprise for the K’Rang. In addition to the two Battle Fleets, we will also have three Battle Cruiser Groups and three Assault Landing Groups in sector. That will give us over 170 ships and almost 1000 fighters, attack ships, landing ships, and support ships. The 21st Battle Fleet will be brought here to the Antares system and held in reserve.”
Kelly was impressed. If the Fleet could bring all those ships into the sector, the K’Rang would be immensely outmatched and outnumbered. He waited to hear what their mission in this endeavor would be.
“Scout Force will deploy ten ships deep into K’Rang space. We’ll have a slightly unusual mission from what we are used to. We’ll have a direct combat mission, instead of just sneaking and peeking. We are to provide early warning to the Fleet of any K’Rang reinforcements. We are also to take out as much K’Rang commerce to the three main staging worlds as practical. Create as much havoc as you can. Our goal will be to interdict commerce to and from these three worlds in order to accomplish two goals. The first goal will be to reduce K’Rang ability to support the assault into the Scutum sector. The second goal will be to tie down as many K’Rang ships as we can, to keep them from reinforcing the invasion fleet. The K’Rang are going to advance directly into a buzz saw. They are going to send out a general alarm and call for reinforcements. Our mission is to make that a difficult proposition for them.”
“If we’re to accomplish these goals, it will be imperative to maintain our force as long as possible. This means you are going to have to be kind enough not to get yourself destroyed, at least not for a while. You will need to be bold and cautious at the same time. I ask you not to take undue risks unless the benefits are so great as to make it desirable. Stay safe, gentlemen. This is not the last battle we will fight with the K’Rang. We’re going to need you back. Look for easy targets or ones you can get away from quickly, if things don’t go your way. Remember that we want to put a large hole in the K’Rang Fleet roster, not ours.”
“Are there any questions? If not, I’ll turn you over to Captain Hasselrode to give you your individual patrol zones. Good luck and good hunting.”
The entire room came to attention as Admiral Craddock left the room. Captain Hasselrode activated a holographic display of the space in which the battle would take place. He highlighted the patrol zones of the ten scout ships that would be taking part in the operation. The Vigilant wound up with a patrol zone astride a major space route between two of the home worlds. Kelly brought this area up on his pocket terminal and started looking for places to ambush the K’Rang. He found a planetary nebula with an extended streamer of charged gases that would work for their purposes. This charged gas cloud from a long-dead star would hide them nicely. The only drawback was that the tendril was intermittent and extended deep into K’Rang space. It would be a long way back to GR space if they had to run for it. Escape might be difficult, if they should come to the attention of a large K’Rang force.
The three local planetary systems offered some hiding places from which to spring an ambush, but it would be tough to get in past any defenses. If they could, they would do some real damage. Getting out again would be the problem.
Captain Hasselrode informed them that the missile launcher would be mounted in their cargo hold and each ship would carry 20 anti-ship missiles, in addition to their turrets and guns. This would give them a significant standoff range, and make their task a little more survivable. Now all they had to do was figure out how to sneak through the K’Rang frontier defenses.
After the briefing, Kelly and LCDR Timmons walked back to the Vigilant in silence. This mission was not the thing to talk about in the open. Their success or failure would be decided by how much secrecy they could maintain.
When they got back to the ship, they went directly to the captain’s cabin. Chief Watson was waved in. The holographic projector on the conference table was activated. The captain quickly briefed Chief Watson on their mission. Kelly brought the patrol zone up on the star chart. He highlighted all the possible ambush locations and known defenses. The largest defensive obstacle was the frontier itself. There was an extensive web of sensors and
