Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) (7 page)

Trojan
shook his head. The Union had gotten lucky that their attack had taken place
during the relatively short period when Majestic was being installed but before
the hardened roof and stone layers could be added. There was no point in
staying any longer out here on this ridge in the rain. The attack seemed to be
over, at least at Site B. He carefully slid down the ridge and got back into
the groundcar.

“Take
me back to the spaceport and close the god-dammed door!” he shouted. He needed
to get access to satellite-based communications to find out what else had been
attacked. If the spaceport control tower was damaged, he could always try his
recon craft, assuming that it was still in one piece. Despite his urgings, the
auto-pilot took its time getting the vehicle back to the spaceport. Trojan
cursed the programmed speed limits. By the time the vehicle stopped at the base
of the control tower, the lightning was no longer striking in the distance. It
was hitting nearby, and the resulting thunder was so loud he had to cover his
ears until he got inside the tower. The control tower itself was completely
automated. Fortunately it didn’t seem to be damaged. Trojan quickly activated
the communications equipment and within seconds had static-filled audio contact
with 1st Fleet/Army Force HQ.

“They
came in fast, General!” said his Deputy. “Four ships emerged from hyper-space
with a velocity of roughly one fifth light speed. They planned it perfectly and
approached Hadley from the North Pole. As the planet rotated in front of them,
they were able to hit both continents. Alpha got most of the missile fire. HQ
itself is undamaged, but a lot of the equipment on the surface is so much scrap
metal now. Two freighters sitting on the ground took direct hits in spite of
our rail gun defenses. There were too many missiles coming in too fast for the
guns to stop them all. The Union ships have already reached their closest point
and are now opening the range again. It looks like the attack here is over,
General.”

“Any
word from Makassar?” asked Trojan. Even as he asked the question, he knew the
answer. Makassar was too far away to get word of any attack this quickly.

“No
word of any attack, only routine stuff, but as you know, that’s hours old. Do
you need assistance, Sir? I can have an infantry platoon and half a dozen
personnel carriers on their way there in seconds.”

“I’m
fine, but I don’t know if anyone’s hurt at Site B. Send some medical and
engineering people there just in case. I’m heading back there now to see for
myself. Trojan out.”

The
trip back to the Project Admin Offices seemed to take forever. Trojan had
considered taking his recon craft there instead, but a quick glance when he
exited the control tower revealed the fact that the craft had been knocked on
its side by blast concussion and was damaged. What worried Trojan now was the
lack of communication with Site B. There could be any number of reasons for
that. Not all of them were serious, but some were.

The
only bright spot when the groundcar pulled up to the building entrance was the
fact that the storm was easing off now. Trojan was still soaked to the skin and
would very much have liked to head for his quarters and the dry uniforms he
knew were stored there, but that had to wait. Checking on his people came
first. It didn’t take long to find out that no one was seriously hurt. A few of
the construction crew had minor injuries. The Project Admin building itself was
more or less intact, although blast fragments had damaged the communications
array, which explained the loss of contact.

As
he stood shivering on the observation platform overlooking the valley, he could
see that he had under-estimated the extent of the damage to Majestic. Most of
the computer panels that hadn’t been blown apart were either bent out of shape,
knocked over completely, or had suffered punctures from flying debris and were
now being damaged by rainwater. If more than 10% of the installed computer
components were still salvageable, he’d be surprised. The whole project was
almost back to square one again. At least the manufacturing plant on Danube was
still running. All they had to do was keep it going longer than planned, and
eventually they could replace the lost equipment. The engineering staff had
already come up with an estimate of the delay, taking into consideration the
loss of the two freighters that would have been used to carry the replacement
parts to Hadley. Seven months. That meant it would be well into 2545 before
Majestic came online, and a lot could happen between now and then.

Chapter Five

SSU
cruiser Jutland:

Drake
breathed a sigh of relief as the distance between Jutland and the planet began
to widen. Oracle’s prediction that all mobile defenses would be protecting
Makassar appeared to be correct. The strike force had only been targeted by
ground-based anti-ship missiles, and due to the strike force’s high speed, none
of those had gotten close enough to be a threat. They hadn’t even had to fire
any of their own AMMs. That allowed them to keep their anti-missile capability
a secret. Drake doubted if any of the FED orbiting satellites were able to get
a close up visual image of the Union ships. If they had, they would have seen
the ring of external missile launchers that resembled a belt of bullets on each
ship. With 377 external launchers, each one containing an anti-missile missile,
the upgraded patrol cruisers had a decent amount of defensive capability, and
with half of the AMMs pointing to the rear, it was just as easy to defend
against missile attack from behind as from the front. One drawback was that
each external missile launch tube had to be reloaded manually when the ship was
in orbit around a Union planet or docked with a Union station, but Drake
considered that a small price to pay for all those AMMs. The other drawback was
the fact that they still had to make do with the first generation of AMMs. That
was a worry, but Drake also knew that the second generation of AMM was in the
testing phase. A ground-based version was the first priority, but the ship
launched version would be next.

“Lee
to Strike Force. Congratulations on a well-executed attack. Jutland, you were a
little slow in firing. I hope that won’t happen again next time. Strike Leader
out.”

Drake
made sure his mic was turned off before calling Commodore Lee an asshole.
Jutland had fired its missiles less than one second after the other three
ships. All his missiles had been on target, so the delay hadn’t affected target
accuracy at all. It was obvious to Drake that the Commodore had it in for him,
but he was at a loss as to what he should or could do about it.

Makassar
Defense Force:

Lt.
Commander Remington noticed that her duty shift conning the Normandy was only
half over when the tactical display started pinging madly for attention. Four
red icons had appeared at the extreme edge of the radar satellites’ detection
range. The lack of transponder ID and the alarmingly high speed made it obvious
that they were hostile ships. Remington heard Commodore Stevens clear his
throat over the squadron com channel. She hit the Battle Stations button without
waiting to hear what the Commodore was about to say.

“Stevens
to squadron! We have four bogeys approaching at high speed! Normandy! You’re in
the best position to fire at them! Execute plan Alpha3 immediately! Stevens
out!”

Remington
smiled. The Commodore’s order meant that she could initiate missile fire
herself without having to wait until her CO made it to the Bridge and relieved
her.

“Confirm
Alpha3, Weps,” said Remington. The Weapons Officer replied immediately.

“Alpha3
is ready to fire, Commander!”

Remington
looked down at her number two screen which showed the status of Normandy’s
missile tubes and the Enable Launch virtual button. She touched the button.

“All
missiles have fired!” yelled the Weapons Officer.
He’s too excited,
thought
Remington, but she understood why. It was his first time in an actual combat
situation. With one combat engagement under her belt, she was practically
considered a veteran. Even her CO didn’t have that to brag about. She checked
the tactical display. Alpha3 was the plan to fire two missiles at each bogey.
One would be slightly ahead of the other. The one in front would be armed with
the standard high explosive warhead. The missile lagging behind would be armed
with the new Mark 1 fission warhead. The idea behind the plan was that if the
bogeys had any kind of missile defense, the lead missile would be the focus of
that defense, with the hope that the following missile might be more likely to
get through and hit the ship. Remington didn’t think these bogeys would use
active defenses. She was willing to bet that they had neutron armor and would
let the FED missiles hit that armor, just as the single Union ship had done
eight months ago in Earth orbit. She checked the estimated time to intercept
and was surprised to see that it was almost 21 minutes. Those bogeys were
coming in slow.
Arrogant bastards.
Before she could think of anything
else, she heard her CO’s voice as he entered the Bridge.

“Okay,
Commander, I have the Con!”

Remington
acknowledged the change of command and got up from the Command Chair. “We’ve
fired eight birds under Alpha3 as per the SL’s order, Commander,” she said in a
calm voice.

“Understood.
What’s our reload status, Weps?” asked the CO.

“We’re
reloading with the same combination, Skipper!”

Remington
nodded. The Weapons Officer had taken it upon himself to make that call without
waiting for orders. She hadn’t ordered it, because there was no rush. Alpha3
called for one volley only. Additional missile volleys would only be fired if
needed after the first volley hit.

“Fine,”
said the CO.

As
he strapped himself in the Command Chair, which Remington thought was
completely unnecessary and overly melodramatic, she said, “Request permission to
remain on the Bridge, Captain.”

He
looked at her with a thoughtful expression. “Permission granted.”

She
stepped over to stand near the Tactical Station.
Maybe my physical presence
will help calm Weps down.

SSU
Task Force:

Commodore
Montoya was puzzled. Radar had identified six ships in orbit around Makassar,
but only one of them had fired missiles. He found it difficult to believe that
there was only one warship defending this planet. The other five weren’t acting
like unarmed freighters anxious to get away from a combat situation. They were
maneuvering like warships, so why weren’t they firing missiles? His squadron
was still too far away to fire accurately on the planet and wouldn’t be in
optimum firing range for another 44 minutes. That was the whole point of coming
in slow. Decelerate down to virtually zero velocity at close range and pound
the various industrial targets as they came up over the horizon, while the
defending ships wasted their HE and KE missiles against his squadron’s neutron
armor. He hated it when the enemy didn’t do what they were expected to do.

He
was tempted to order those eight incoming missiles taken out with AMMs, but the
mission plan specifically called for allowing enemy missiles to shatter against
the armor. Besides, his heavy cruisers didn’t have a full load of AMMs, because
they didn’t think they’d need them. If he started actively defending against
incoming missiles, his squadron would soon exhaust their limited supply of
AMMs, and then additional incoming missiles would hit their hulls anyway. So
why not just let the armor do its job?

With
time to impact just seconds away now, Montoya leaned forward to get a better
view of the main tactical display. She watched the red icons merge with the
green icons of his ships…and was thrown to one side so violently that his
vision blurred. The Bridge lost power. When the emergency lights came on, he
realised that the artificial gravity was still working. Thank God for that!
Several people were shouting in panic or in pain. He couldn’t tell which. His
Command Station console was dark, as was the main display.

“What
the hell hit us?” yelled the Helm Officer. It was a good question. The only
thing that Montoya could think of with that much power was a fission or a
fusion device. He needed to get the ship’s power back on if they were to have
any chance of surviving this battle.

“We’ll
figure that out later,” he said in what he hoped was a calm voice. “Right now
we have to restore main power. Bridge to Engineering?” There was no reply.
“Helm, get down to Engineering and find out how quickly they can restore main
power!” The Helm Officer nodded her acknowledgement and sprinted for the exit.
After checking, Montoya discovered that no one on the Bridge was seriously
hurt, but without internal communications it was impossible to know how the
rest of the crew fared. The lack of power was maddening. His ship was deaf,
blind and almost certainly crippled. He had no idea of the condition of the
other three ships, nor did he know if the FEDs were firing more missiles at
them.