SODIUM:5 Assault (10 page)

When the assault timer had ticked down to hours, Hershen reached out and put his long slender hand on my shoulder. I had been pacing all morning trying to calm the nerves that came with an all-out battle. I was told that it had been an honor serving me for so many years, and that it would be an honor again tomorrow and an honor the day after. It was a confidence boost I needed and I thanked my friend for his kind words.

Shortly thereafter the first of the Borten ships dropped below light speed as they slowed for their assault. The first batch were smaller scout ships, no doubt sending information back to the main fleet before the bulk of it would arrive. The scouts fanned out and soon infested most of the Rho Puppis system.

We remained silent, watching as they moved about the system checking every possible place that a surprise fleet might hide. The scout that circled the sun passed through our fleet, warping through several of our ships as it passed. Our active skin had once again been an excellent defense and a thing of wonder.

When the first scout got within 500,000 kilometers of Toleda two of the mobile platforms began to fire upon it. Even at that distance the new speed of the pellets was too much for the scout and it was soon annihilated. When a second scout ventured close it met with the same fate.

With no other threats reported back to the main fleet it soon dropped from light speed. Our long wave sensors began to go crazy with the sheer number of ships that were detected. Within minutes tens of thousands of Borten ships had entered the Rho Puppis system and it was soon evident by their formations that they were preparing for an assault.

But the early ships did not fall into an immediate attack. They instead waited for the remainder of the fleet to slow and to take up position. The numbers were staggering and my nervousness over what we were about to be engaged in once again returned.

We watched in awe as the massive globe ships soon took up positions surrounding the Borten fleet. Minutes later the globe ships began to have an orange glow to them. As the minutes passed the glow began to spread outward like a giant sheet. The glow then reached a maximum intensity when the sheets overlapped from one ship to another.

It was speculated that the orange glow was some sort of a shield that would protect the fleet as they began their attack. When the shield was complete the entire body of ships began to move forward. When they reached the 500,000 kilometer range the first of the mobile guns began to fire.

As the initial Protactinium pellets arrived, the alien shield turned white hot in an instant at the point of contact, the round vaporized before traveling another kilometer. As the fleet moved forward, more of the mobile guns came online firing round after round. An impressive light show signaled the official start of the battle.

When the Borten ships reached 200,000 kilometers they began to fire projectiles of their own. Our new mobile platforms were equipped with gravity guns also and the first of the alien rounds were easily deflected or halted dead in space.

But as the fleet moved closer more of the Borten ships began to fire and it soon became apparent that our mobile platforms were about to be overwhelmed. Battle command gave the order to launch all Drillers and Toleda's dark side was soon lit up by a million tiny lights. For a moment, the Borten fleet halted its progress.

When the first of the Drillers passed through the alien shield there was a sudden massive launch of small fighters that were not unlike our own mini-fighters in size. Our view of the fleet soon became muddled from the glow of the Protactinium striking the shield and the swarm of millions of small black craft that were flying about to do battle with the Drillers.

We watched in awe for hours as the Drillers first evaded the fighters and then attacked their targets. As the Drillers began to find their targets we were witness to multiple explosions. But the Borten ships were so numerous that the rate of destruction of their fleet would be extremely slow. The Borten then launched an offensive of their own.

More than 30,000 of their destroyers lined up in a column and then rapidly advanced towards the planet. The mobile platforms in the area were soon overwhelmed and the destroyers began to scream down through the atmosphere to attack the planet’s surface. They were met with a fierce barrage of surface coil gun rounds, but those rounds proved to be largely ineffective.

Our next counter was the launch of mini-Drillers from the surface. Surrounding each fake city were several platforms of the mini-Driller launchers. As the 30,000 plus Borten ships spread across the planet’s surface the mini-Drillers were in hot pursuit.

As we watched the battle continue to unfold the Borten then sent in more than 10,000 cruisers. Their all-out offensive was well underway. The Borten craft on the surface used a combination of gravity weapons and high energy beams. Explosions were soon commonplace and fires raged across the globe.

When the Borten battleships committed to the fight the signal came in that it was time for the Human fleet to makes its move. We would first move in the opposite direction around Rho Puppis and then drift in unison towards the remaining Borten fleet. At 500,000 kilometers our current compliment of 14 Starbursts would be launched at four of the globe ships on our side of their defenses. It was time for do or die.

Riding in the cone of each Starburst were 800 BGS Marines, accompanied by a dozen Drillers. Their goal was to knock out at least a portion of the alien shield thereby allowing our fleet access to the remaining Borten ships. I had confidence in the plans ability to work.

At 100,000 kilometers the Starburst modules began to disperse their overcompensated BHDs. Approximately 3.7 seconds later the first of the Lawrencium powered cones made its way through the globe shield and into a globe ship. The other 13 Starburst modules soon followed suit.

Once on-board, the Drillers began their dirty-work and the Marines began their assaults. I watched with excitement on a monitor as a Marine Squad Commander barked orders and pushed his men forward. The Borten were awkward fighters and were soon being slaughtered by the hundreds as the Marines advanced.

As I watched a message was delivered to me. Both of Zack’s sons were on globe ship number three and were moving forward with their team. I hesitated and then switched my view to that of their squad leader. They were pushing hard and obliterating everything the Borten defenders threw at them. It was a proud moment as I watched the highly trained Marines efficiently dispatch any attempts at an attack that the Borten made.

The globe ships were massive and the assaults by BGS Marines moved slowly through their seemingly endless corridors. As team FT77 moved down a long corridor I watched with satisfaction as the Borten troops first fired and were then blown apart from our gravity pulse guns. Destruction and death moved down the corridor in front of our team.

The Borten had soon found a technique that worked well to take down our Drillers. The damage had been done however and one of the globe ships soon lost power to its shield. But a shield overlap remained, it was strong enough to compensate and cover for the loss. When a second globe ship powered down a small opening was left for our fleet to punch through.

I gave the order and all ships diverged on the shield opening at once. As we began to move the field generator for one of the ships again powered up and our first ships in line had to take evasive action. The generator was soon again shut down as a BGS Marine team stormed the control room that had brought it back online.

Our ships streamed through the opening in the shield and were soon greeted by a million Borten mini-fighters. The order was given and our fleet launched a combined total of more than six million mini-fighters at once. It was quickly evident that the Borten fighters were no match for our own.

I could sense the excitement growing in the command center in front of me as our planners worked over their screens and sent out orders. It was a coordinated effort that Man had never before seen. Large groups of our ships moved in unison to achieve one goal after another. With the battle going well I focused my energies back on the Marine squad aboard the globe ship.

Zack's sons were continuing on their rampage, blasting controls and pummeling the Borten soldiers with their gravity pulse guns. It was only then that I realized that their squad commander was their own father. Zack had re-enlisted shortly after our last visit. With his military record and experience he had been given the command that he wanted. That command was over his son's unit.

As I watched I gained respect and admiration for both his command and execution skills. He barked orders and his troops followed them precisely. After several continuous hours of fighting they had yet to lose a man.

When they reached the end of a long corridor they were stopped by two gargantuan doors. The Marines typically fought with their BGS suits tuned to a low level so they could make the most out of whatever gravity the current environment offered. Their suits were tuned to always provide a set amount of interaction with the gravity so that they were always fighting under the exact conditions they had trained for.

With the giant blast doors stopping their progress, Zack ordered their BGS suits to full. They would drift through to the other side and once again begin their assault. In an instant the squad stepped towards the doors and blinked out. When they arrived on the other side they held their fire.

Behind the blast doors was a massive room with biped beings that stood in long white robes facing away from the Marines. There was no sign of any Borten soldiers. The beings then slowly turned around towards Zack and his squad while raising their arms with open hands. The beings had human faces.

After a short time of facing the white robed beings Zack ordered his men to drop their BGS suit levels back to the normal combat level. It would make his squad visible to the robed beings where communications with them could be attempted. When the team blinked in the white robed beings began to slowly smile.

Then, in an instant, Zack and the Marine squad were all blasted backwards against the giant doors. The video feed from their suits continued to run as Borten soldiers quickly closed on their position. They were still alive, but they were captives of the Borten.

Just before their BGS suits were powered off and their weapons removed the white robed beings faded from view. They were nothing more than a holographic display that had been set up to lure the team to drop their defenses. Standing behind the hologram were several hundred Borten soldiers with a powerful gravity beam weapon.

We had been tricked by our enemy and it had cost us a valued team of Marines. Word went out over the comms of the stunt and of the devious nature of the Borten. The teams had been warned to not always trust their eyes.

With Zack and his squad captive I ordered my command ship to pull alongside the globe ship they were captive on. I ordered our entire contingent of Marines, more than 250,000, to board the globe ship and to retrieve our warriors... alive.

Within minutes teams of BGS Marines were blinking in on the globe ship and starting advances towards the area of the massive ship where Zack's team had been taken captive. The Marines fought with a fierceness that I had not yet seen. They were intent on bringing home their own.

The Borten ships that had attacked the surface had taken heavy losses from the mini-Drillers. They had discovered that the planet was uninhabited and that the humans had a devious nature of their own. When the discovery was made the order had been given to return to the main fleet.

Our fleet had engaged in direct fire with the Borten ships and we soon found our shielding and firepower to be superior. The battles were drawn out, but they were going decidedly in our favor. Our mini-fighters had all but eliminated the Borten fighters and had turned their destructive powers towards the smaller of the Borten vessels.

Word soon came in that Zack's team had been rescued and were on their way to our medical bays for treatment. As soon as they were safely on-board I ordered my command ship to move back out to a safe distance from the combat. We were winning the war and a sense of relief began to well up inside me. I thought that perhaps we were finally nearing the end.

As the battle raged on I left from the bridge heading to the medical bays. I had to know of Zack's condition, I wanted to be there if he regained consciousness. Just as I left the bridge the ship was rocked by several powerful explosions. Somehow Borten soldiers had made their way aboard.

I powered up my BGS until only the slightest of gravity was evident and then pushed my way towards the supposed attack. Hershen followed close behind. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins and my BGS suit fought hard to subdue its affects.

When we arrived in the section that was under attack I was joined by the four Marine squads that had remained on the ship. They were mostly the clerks and maintenance workers, but they were still Marines. Our contingent of 250,000 BGS Marines had been left on the globe ship to finish its capture. We had 28 BGS Marines, Hershen, 120 staffers and me left to contend with what our monitors told us were thousands of Borten troops.

I pulled up an overlay of the section and commanded my squads to move down two corridors. The medical bays were adjacent to the attackers and I wanted to see that Zack's team was protected. We raced down the corridors until the first of the Borten troops were spotted. Heavy fire ensued with my team taking down one invader after another. Hershen stayed close in front of me working largely as cover.

As two members of my squad rounded a corner they were met with a powerful gravity beam that knocked them hard backwards into a wall. They slumped to the floor lifeless. I ordered all suits to be brought to their maximum and we were soon micro-bursting our way around and behind the Borten troops and their weapon.

When we came through a wall behind them we blasted them with our pulse guns and then maneuvered in to inspect the gravity cannon they had brought on-board. It was big and unwieldy, it took four crewmen to operate and maneuver, but it was effective.

I fired a pulse smashing the weapon beyond use and then barked the order for us to proceed. Our advance was rapid, but we had almost two kilometers of ship to move through to get to the medical bays. Our hall-to-hall battles lasted for nearly an hour. The bridge staff and Marines squads were pushing the remaining Borten troops back slowly.

When we arrived at the main medical corridor our doctors, nurses and the remaining medical staff had taken up weapons to defend themselves. They had done well to slow the Borten troop’s advance. My squads quickly cleared the hallways of our enemy and secured the medical facilities. Zack and his squad were safe.

I then turned our small team back towards the invaders and began to slowly push them back from the medical bays. They continued to lose ground in the other areas of the ship as our staff of planners, maintenance workers, cooks, engineers and operational support personnel assaulted their positions.

The cruiser Baton Rouge soon pulled alongside us and 50,000 BGS Marines crossed over into our ship. Within an hour the last of the Borten invaders had been killed or taken captive. I had lost nearly a quarter of my command ship staff during our defense, but we had held.

The Borten had come aboard in cloaked transports that had docked and cut through the inactive Sodium skin as our own troops had made their way to the globe ship. It was a defensive problem that we did not yet have a solution to. For anyone to leave the ship the active skin had to be turned off.

Through a series of somewhat lucky maneuvers the Borten attackers had boarded without our knowledge. It was Murphy's law and was something that always seemed to happen in combat no matter how much planning had been done. Surprises coupled with dumb luck were often a deadly combination.

The Borten commanders had reasoned that, due to their hierarchical culture, if they could take control of the command ship they would then control the entire fleet. Their reasons were sound thinking within the Frekkin Empire, but had no bearing on Human actions or reactions. With us, if you cut off the head of the snake, it would just grow a new head.

With the Borten command strategy thwarted it soon became evident that they were losing the war and losing it badly. An offer of surrender and a request to be subjects of the Human Empire came from their command ship. The surrender was granted and hostilities soon came to an end.

There were great celebrations on Earth as word leaked out of our victory. The great Borten fleet had rolled over and was on our side. Preparations were soon made to return to the Borten system for an official surrender. Without a fleet they would all have no choice but to become subjects of the Human Empire.

When our Marines had taken full control of the Borten fleet I gave a command to plan for a trip to the Borten worlds. Two days later we were on our way. The travel time was nearly a month, but we would be doing so with knowledge that there would be no confrontations when we arrived.

Our recon destroyer in the far system had continued to watch as the single Driller slowly gutted the automated space port. There would be no more globe ships coming from its shipyards. I ordered the destroyer to return and to proceed up the line towards the system with the red planet. With the Borten defeated our concerns would be turned towards the next member of the Frekkin Empire.

I had the commanders of the Borten fleet brought aboard my command vessel for questioning. I quizzed them on the globe ships to which they responded that they had no knowledge of the beings who built them except that they were known as the Por Hollis. When they received a ship such as the globe ship, it came with instructions on its use. Other than knowing the name of the species, they were not even sure of what the Por Hollis looked like.

It was again another mystery as we proceeded further up the chain of the Frekkin outer worlds. Nothing was known of the next world other than its location and the inhabitant’s name. The Sodium tax had been paid as always by dropping off the resource just shy of the next world’s space. It was always gone when they came back so they knew it was being collected.

In return for the Sodium tax the Frekkin did not attack and largely stayed out of the outer worlds business. They were told that non-compliance with any Frekkin rules would bring a swift death to their people. Until our arrival and conquering of the Kurtz they had never tempted fate by doing anything other than what they had been told. I thought it a strange way to run an empire, but the Frekkin had been successful at it up until then.

When we arrived at Trephin, Login and Pelvic we were greeted by a Borten political ship carrying its dignitaries. They had little defense against our weapons and were eager to submit to our authority. They were terrified of the Frekkin, but the Frekkin were not parked just above their planet, parked with an armada that could easily destroy them.

I was disappointed when the leader of the Borten people was brought into a conference room for me to question. His name was Hi-Bet and he called himself the Supreme Commander... a title which I held myself. He was just over a meter tall and a meter wide. Again, all I could think of was a giant blueberry with nastily sharp teeth.

When he spoke I had a translator waiting beside me. She had been busily studying their language since our first recon destroyer had arrived to spy on their system. She had quickly mastered a fair understanding of their language and was soon telling me what the Borten leader was saying. When he finished his political rant I questioned whether or not they truly wanted to join the Human Empire. Given their situation I expected and received nothing less than an emphatic "Yes".