HOLDING THE LINE CHAPTER 171: SCRAPS OF HONOUR 13- RED SKY AT
MORNING [2/2]
Written by Nick "Chaeronea" Deane
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
- 16th century nautical saying
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Deep Space, Nifelheim System
1017 Hours, 17 February 2681 (2681.048)
===========================================
Paul Onslow’s concern for his pilots had only deepened as the combat exercise
against the Reapers had progressed. Shortly after 0700 hours both squadrons had
started one-on-one dogfighting practice, with half of the Scrappers
participating in two duels instead of just one - the Reapers had eighteen
fighters instead of the Scrappers’ twelve. Onslaught had assigned the less
experienced pilots in his squadron to double-up on the grounds that they were
most in need of practice. It turned out that they needed even more practice
than he had hoped - out of the eighteen duels the Scrappers had only won seven.
The 349th Composite Fighter Squadron was one of the best units in the Border
Worlds Militia, but the Reapers were among the best in all the Border Worlds
armed forces.
And then they had progressed to the team exercises. First they had started with
two-on-one, then two-on-two and finally four-on-four. The Scrappers had plenty
of experience with fighting as a team, but so did the Reapers. The 121st
Superiority Fighter Squadron had fought from Circe to the Bush to Landreich,
against enemies ranging from pirates to the Black Lance to the Cult of Sivar,
and had defeated them all.
“All right,” the Scrappers’ leader ordered over the comm. “I know you’re all
tired and we’re outnumbered, but they’re tired too. And we fight dirty, so that
counts in our favour. Besides, this should be a lot harder than any fight we
get into against the Nephilim,” he said in an encouraging voice, trying to
boost his troops’ spirits.
“Here’s hoping,” Todd ‘Cateran’ McLaughlin grumbled. The Cabrean was usually
one of the more cheerful of the Scrappers, and his complaint emphasised just
how low the squadron’s morale had sunk after the drubbing the Reapers had given
them.
“Complaining won’t do any good,” Onslaught chided. “What we have to do is
figure out how we’re going to handle them in the big furball coming up in less
than a minute. Suggestions?”
“Stick with your wingman and dogpile them,” Alex ‘Storm’ Morgan offered. “What
the hell, it’s the best I can come up with.”
“Maybe you didn’t notice but they outnumber us,” Eric ‘Zealot’ Maslevski
replied dryly.
“So?” the former privateer shrugged. “Numbers are only overwhelming if your
enemy can bring them to bear on you. We target the rear half-dozen with a
missile barrage, and that cuts the odds down to one-on-one.”
“Only for a while,” Jack ‘Diamond’ DeVille shot back as he guided his Intruder
into position on Onslaught’s wing. Around him the Scrappers were forming up into
a cohesive formation.
“Got an alternative?” Storm demanded. “At least it’ll buy us time.”
“We go with it,” Onslaught ordered. “And we hope they don’t try the same with
us.”
“They won’t,” Anthony ‘Grimlock’ Grimm cut in. “Retaliators have a datalink system
called STORM - no smartass comments, Six. It lets them share targeting data on
multiple targets and distribute fire evenly, so we’ll all be targeted equally.”
“Enough talk. Fight’s on,” Onslaught snapped. Sure enough a series of yellow
dots had appeared on the Scrappers’ HUDs marked the path of a volley of
simulated missiles launched by the Reapers. “Bunch up,” the Scrappers’ leader
ordered as he tracked the missiles’ path even as the Retaliators closed in. Three
missiles on each of us. The kid was right after all, he thought as the
fighters flown by his subordinates closed in on each other. “Starburst in
three… two… one… Go!”
On cue the 349th hit their afterburners and went into a booster climb en masse.
Even as they ejected decoys they separated and boosted away from each other,
twisting and turning in evasive maneuvers. Finally the militia pilots evaded
the last of the missiles and unleashed a volley of their own. Each Intruder and
Marauder fired a salvo of Spiculum image-recognition missiles at the last
several Reapers, but unlike the Space Force squadron the Scrappers lacked the
STORM datalink network. As a result their missile fire wasn’t spread as evenly
as the Reapers’ had been - three Retaliators were attacked by two missiles
each, four Retaliators drew four missiles each while one unfortunate pilot was
the target of no fewer than six Spiculums. That left ten of the superfighters
unengaged, and that gave the Scrappers a small window of opportunity.
A pair of Retaliators raced head-to-head with Harbinger and Cateran, their guns
spitting fire even as the two Scrappers opened up on the fighter attacking the
flight leader. Bolts from meson and particle guns bit into the heavy fighter’s
forward shields just before the two medium fighters raced past. Even as the two
heavy fighters began to turn in pursuit, however, the one attacking Harbinger
came under attack. Storm and Stardust had been trailing their flightmates by a
couple of thousand kilometres and now they hammered their target with the
combined fire of eight rapid-fire mass drivers. The Reaper fighter twisted like
a fish on a line even as her wingman opened up on Stardust’s Marauder with all
guns blazing.
The strawberry-blonde pilot wrenched her attack fighter into an evasive
corkscrew, trying to avoid the pounding of four tachyon cannons. This was
difficult for two reasons - because the Reaper pilot was one of the best the
Union of Border Worlds could offer, and because the Retaliator’s guns were
guided by an autotracking system. “I’d appreciate some help, Storm,” she called
over the comm even as she snapped her fighter’s nose around for a quick burst
of fire, spraying simulated mass driver fire at her attacker. The Retaliator
didn’t flinch, continuing its barrage of energy at the Marauder. “Dammit, give
me a hand!” she yelled.
Storm was otherwise occupied. Chopping the throttle back to zero he poured a
long burst of gunfire into his target, cutting through the remnants of its
shields and chewing into the heavy fighter’s already-battered armour. Finally
the Retaliator’s red dot on the HUD faded to a green one, signifying a kill.
“One down!” the ex-privateer yelled exultantly.
“Great. Now help me out!” demanded Stardust as her fighter’s shields flared
under another assault. “There’s more red lights on my status board than in the
Strip back home!”
“Nag, nag, nag,” Storm complained as he spun his Marauder around in a tight
arc, bringing his guns to bear on the fighter pursuing his wingleader. Even as
he pulled the trigger, however, the attacking fighter broke away, a green dot
burning in its place on the HUD. “Who got the kill?” he wondered aloud as he
quickly scanned the sky around him, looking for targets.
“I did,” Todd McLaughlin admitted as his Intruder came into view. “Harbinger’s
gone and I’m banged up. How are you two doing?” It wasn’t exactly
Academy-approved radio protocol, but right now nobody really cared.
“Storm here. Everything’s fine with me. Stardust?” Alex Morgan queried his
wingleader.
“The armour on my front and left sides is gone,” Kristy Joyce reported crisply.
“I’ve got damage to my targeting systems and sensors, but the autorepair
systems can handle that given enough time - I hope.”
“Yeah, well time’s one thing we’re running short of,” Storm barked. “Five bad
guys coming in, ten o’clock high! Break left!” he ordered as he reefed his
Marauder around to face the enemy. The militia pilots sprayed gunfire at the
approaching Retaliators who eagerly returned fire. Three of them concentrated
on Cateran’s Intruder, hoping to eliminate the weaker threat before having to
deal with the pair of heavier fighters. The other two went one-on-one with the
Marauders, hoping to buy time for their comrades.
“Someone help me! I’m being torn to bits!” Cateran yelled as he hurled his
fighter into a series of dizzying jinks and spins, futilely attempting to evade
the dozen streams of tachyon bolts pounding his shields flat and mauling his
simulated armour. The Cabrean pilot swore as the shields on his fighter dropped
to dangerously low levels. Fuck this, he thought grimly as he locked a
pair of missiles onto one of his pursuers. I’m not going to make it through
this, but I’ll give them something to remember me by. His thumb pressed the
missile release and a pair of virtual Image Recognition missiles dropped from
his Intruder’s ordnance bays, racing towards the enemy. One of the Retaliators
broke off to dodge the missiles but the other pair kept chopping at the
Intruder with short bursts of gunfire, chewing even deeper into the fighter's
core.
Stardust cursed as the blue blip of Cateran's fighter turned green on her HUD.
Five against two was bad odds, especially when the five were more skilled than
the two. She brought her fighter’s nose up and snapped off a burst of fire at
her attacker even as it flashed past. A quick glance at her HUD showed her that
the last exchange of fire had left her almost bereft of shields to her front.
“Cateran’s down. How you doing?” Kristy asked her wingman through clenched
teeth even as she banked high and to the right, trying to bring her Marauder
around on the flank of her opponent. But even if she managed to out-turn the
more agile Retaliator, the more advanced fighter could just autoslide and still
put its guns on her. Dead if I fight, dead if I run, but I’m going to fight
to the end. I’m a Scrapper, dammit, and proud of it! the redhaired medic
snarled silently.
“Could be better,” Storm admitted as he wrenched his fighter through a
punishing vertical scissors with his opponent, both fighters trying to force
the other out in front of their guns. “You holding up okay?”
“My front shields are down and I’m still dancing with this joker. I think this
is it,” Stardust replied. “I’ll do my best -“
“Bugger that!” Storm exclaimed. “Hold on a few more seconds and I’ll be there.
I’m the bait, you’re the hook. Just stay alive until I get there!” the
ex-privateer ordered as he rammed the throttles to the stops and broke away
hard, leaving his opponent in the dust. His grey eyes glinted as he set course
for the three fighters which had just finished off Cateran and now were moving
to get Stardust in their sights. As he raced up behind them Storm hastily
locked a pair of Javelin heatseekers onto the centre Retaliator, ignoring the
fire of its aft turret. “Smile, wise guy,” the reckless Scrapper snarled as he
let fly. But instead of staying to confirm the kill he blazed through the
formation on full afterburner, intent on the Reaper still shooting at his
wingleader.
The Retaliator cut loose with a volley of fire from its tachyon cannons, barely
missing Stardust’s Marauder as it dodged and wove. The pilot lined up for
another shot but almost jumped out of his ejection seat as Storm ripped into
his fighter with a long burst of simulated mass driver fire. Virtual bolts
ripped into the Reaper’s shields and armour as it whipped over into a brutal
wingover, trying futilely to evade the hail of fire from the former privateer’s
Marauder. Storm raced past the savaged Retaliator on full afterburner and, for
a second, the Reaper pilot thought he’d managed to survive the Scrapper’s
wrath.
Then the two Pilum IFF missiles that Storm had launched at point-blank range
slammed into the fighter, ripping it apart in a spray of electronic data.
“All right!” Storm hissed triumphantly as his target’s blip shifted from red to
green. The other four Retaliators were coming up fast behind him with blood in
their eyes, which was just what he wanted. If they were concentrating on him
then that gave Stardust time to regenerate her fighter’s shields and move into
position. The hot-tempered pilot spun his Marauder into a series of sharp spins
and rolls, punching out decoys as his pursuers attempted to lock missiles onto
his careening fighter. Tachyon bolts pounded his shields and raced past him as
he jinked back and forth, using occasional spurts of afterburner to confuse the
Reapers on his tail even more before turning to face his foes. And then he
heard the most welcome words he’d heard this day.
“Fox two.”
Stardust had whipped into position and locked onto the Retaliator in the centre
of the formation, and now she punched off a pair of simulated Javelin
heatseekers. The missiles homed in on their target, crippling the Reaper
fighter. A burst from Stardust’s guns delivered the coup de grace. “Three
left,” she reported curtly as she followed the Retaliator on the far left into
a tight turn.
“Copy.” Storm let his Marauder sideslip so he would pass between the two
remaining Retaliators. Gotta get through the merge as quick as I can.
They’ve still got ImRecs on the racks and I’ve only got heatseekers, so they
can shoot at me from head-on. But my Javs will only lock on from the rear,
which leaves me at a disadvantage. What the hell - if you get lemons, you make
lemonade. He rammed the throttles wide open and hit the afterburners as
soon as the range scrolled down to six thousand kilometres. The fighters
converged at nearly two thousand KPS and Storm gritted his teeth as the numbers
reeled off. Here’s where it gets interesting….
Sure enough the RHAWS screamed in his headphones as missiles flew at him.
Storm frantically wrenched the joystick back and to the left, stomped on the
left rudder pedal and dropped a number of decoys in an effort to confound the
Spiculums chasing his fighter, and he almost succeeded. Five of the missiles
sped past but one slammed into his fighter’s right side, stripping it of its
shielding along the right flank. Even as the Scrapper struggled to bring his
fighter back on course, the Retaliators spun in place and blazed away at him
with their main guns. White bolts of energy ripped into the Marauder’s
unshielded side armour and the computer wailed even as it faithfully displayed
the list of ‘damaged’ components and systems to its pilot. Storm glanced at the
wire-frame graphic of his fighter and winced as he saw it was almost entirely
red from simulated internal damage. Even as he twisted the HOTAS to jink yet
again another volley of tachyon bolts tore into his fighter’s core and his
computer chimed insistently, over and over again.
For Alex Morgan the exercise was over.
“God-fucking-damn it!” he snared as he switched his comm unit to the exercise’s
general frequency. “Scrapper Six, good kill. I’m dead,” he grumbled aloud as he
guided his fighter towards the area where the fighters killed in the exercise
would wait until the exercise was concluded. Almost instantly dubbed the
‘penalty box’, the regrouping area was thirty thousand kilometres from the
region of space where the exercise was being held so Storm had plenty of time
to think about his performance. At least he would have if the Retaliator he’d
shot down hadn’t decided to open a comm channel to him.
“This is Reaper Seven. Who just shot me down?”
“Scrapper Six here,” Storm replied to the figure on his commscreen VDU.
“Lieutenant Alex ‘Storm’ Morgan, 349th Composite Fighter Squadron,” he
introduced himself.
“Captain Warwick ‘Blade’ Harrigan,” the Retaliator pilot answered. “Formerly of
the 156th Superiority Fighter Squadron, currently attached to the 121st
SFS.”
“Okay, I’ve heard of the 121st,” the Scrapper told Blade. “They’re the Reapers
and they fly off the Valeria. But I’ve never heard of the 156th. Who are
they?”
“Starkillers,” Harrigan answered curtly. “We flew off the Littenia. Of
course that’s kind of difficult now that the Littenia’s lost, so we got
folded in with the Reapers to replace their losses.”
“Oops,” Alex apologised as the two fighters approached the ‘penalty box’. He
quickly switched comm channels. “Little Eyes, this is Scrapper Six. Requesting
datafeed for myself and Reaper Seven, over.”
"Copy that, Scrapper Six. Linking you now," came the reply. Little
Eyes was one of six R-type shuttles converted to SWACS use that was undergoing
testing at Research Station G-243, the 'black barn' testing facility in the
Nifelheim system. The SWACS spacecraft deployed by Confed carriers gave them a
decisive advantage the Border Worlds were struggling to match, even with
samples of the Gratha command-and-control shuttle used by the Kilrathi during
the First Kilrathi War. The squadron-level exercises taking place throughout
the Nifelheim system were a golden opportunity for not only the fighter pilots
to hone their skills against one another, but also for the SWACS controllers
aboard the shuttle to get in some valuable practice time to get used to their
equipment. Hopefully the Nephilim would hold off for a couple more days so that
the reserve group’s fighter squadrons could get in some training at being
coached by the cobbled-together SWACS shuttles, but wars are not won by hopes.
The datafeed from Little Eyes suddenly appeared on each fighter’s HUD as they
moved into the ‘penalty box’, showing the location of each fighter still in the
dogfight as well as those which had been ‘destroyed’. The dead fighters were
shown with green dots, the Scrappers still in the fight were blue dots and the
Reapers still active were red dots. “Now all we need is some popcorn so we can
properly watch the show,” Storm joked.
“Roger that,” Blade chuckled. “Let’s go to the videotape.”
“If you’re looking for munchies, Storm, there’s certainly enough nuts out
here,” Dani ‘Dancer’ Owens commented tartly. “In both squadrons.”
“Hey, don’t you talk about crazy,” an unfamiliar voice cut in over the comm
channel. Has to be one of the Reapers, the taciturn ex-privateer
realised. “You’re the one who tried taking me out by using a torpedo as a
dumbfire!”
“And it worked, didn’t it Striker?” the platinum-blonde Scrapper fired back. “I
got you with it!”
“Only in the two-vee-two,” Striker replied. “You tried the same trick in this
melee, but you took your shot from too far away. You gave me time to dodge, and
that’s not good.”
“So did you get him, Dani?” Storm asked his fellow militia pilot. In the comm
VDU he saw her shake her head.
“Nah. He broke away and was on my six before I could take another shot at him,”
she admitted. “He would have got me if Bloodhawk hadn’t taken him down.”
“At least he didn’t forget the major advantage your Marauders have,” Striker
commented as Storm and Blade’s fighters joined up with the gaggle of fighters
flying a slow racetrack pattern in the 'penalty box’. “He’s the only one I’ve
seen use his cloaking device all day.” There was a long pause before anyone
spoke.
“Uh…cloaking device?” Zealot asked hesitantly, almost as if he was afraid of the
answer.
“Yeah, we were told not to use our tachyon detection grids to spot any
Marauders that went to cloak,” the Reaper pilot confirmed. “The Bugs can’t spot
cloaked ships any better than our normal ships - Retaliators were especially
designed to spot cloaked ships - so it was thought that we could simulate Bugs
better if we ignored you while you were cloaked.”
“Um… what’s this about the Marauders having cloaking devices?” Stardust asked.
A quick glance at the feed from the SWACS confirmed that she had been finally
killed and was making her way to join her other ‘dead’ comrades.
“Take a look on the control panel just in front of the throttle quadrant,”
Dancer advised the other Scrappers in a resigned voice. ”You’ll find the
activation switch there.”
“Don’t tell me you’d forgotten!” Blade interrupted in an incredulous voice.
“Jesus, I can’t believe you people!”
“Hey, it's not like we've had time to get used to these birds! We’ve had them
for less than two weeks!” Sandra ‘Riot’ Lynch barked. Storm’s eyebrows rose in
surprise - Lynch was about as excitable as the basalt mountains of her
homeworld of Masa IV. For her to snap like this was almost unheard of. But then
again, so was the stress the Scrappers were under at the moment. “Besides, most
of what we’ve heard about the Nephilim is that they can see right through
cloaking. That’s how they took down the recon birds sent to investigate Kilrah,
right?”
Striker shook his head. “Not with the modifications to the cloaking systems
that our engineers cam up with. They should have been sent across to your own
tech crews by now but I’ll double-check to make sure that’s happened if you
want.” The older man’s placating tones managed to calm the rising tensions as
effectively as a blanket smothered a fire.
“That would be great, Striker,” Riot told him, her voice calm and controlled
once more. “If it’s no trouble -“
“Shouldn’t be,” the Retaliator pilot replied. “I’ll get onto it as soon as we
land back on the Valeria, which should be any time soon.”
As if to confirm his words the voice of the chief controller from Little Eyes
came over the comm channels. “Scrappers, Reapers, the fight is over. Contact
your carriers for landing vectors. Little Eyes out.”
“Little Eyes this is Scrapper Lead. What’s the scorecard?” Onslaught asked the
SWACS controller, curiosity in his voice. He was proud of his people and wanted
to know just how they had fared in their battle with one of the best squadron
in the Border Worlds. Also he wouldn’t be too surprised to find out that they’d
put down a number of bets on the battle’s outcome.
“Final kill count is as follows: Scrappers eight, Reapers twelve,” Little Eyes
replied. A chorus of groans broke out over the comm net.
"What? We didn't even break even?"
"This is bullshit!"
"Break it up!" the Scrappers' leader ordered. After a few more
grumbles and muttered complaints the militia pilots lapsed into silence.
"Mirage? How did we do?" he asked the Reapers' leader.
"Pretty good," Mirage admitted. "You've got some good people
here, Colonel, especially the one who nearly took me out -"
"Thank you," John 'Bloodhawk' Hawke acknowledged dryly. Rhodes
ignored the interruption and continued speaking.
"The main thing you have to remember against the Bugs is to support each
other and to use any advantages you can," she warned the militia pilots as
her squadron formed up around her. "This is a war of annihilation - gatagak'vu
as the Kats call it - so Hoyle's gets thrown right out the airlock. Any trick
you can come up with is fine so long as it works."
"That includes using your cloaking devices," Blade added somewhat
snippily, ignoring the Bronx cheers from the Scrappers his cheap shot provoked.
"We get the message," Storrm growled, unable to suppress his
irritation at the former Starkiller. "And when it comes to fighting dirty,
that's our motto." The former privateer paused then added, "Anything
worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for."
"Exactly," Mirage agreed.
========================================
Commodore's Cabin, BWS Sicily
Nifelheim System
1528 hours, 17 February 2681 (2681.048)
=========================================
"Enter!" Philip Johnson snapped testily as the buzzer to his room
sounded. His desk was almost covered with scattered datapads, data crystals and
written reports. Life was so much simpler when I was tac officer on the Resolute.
Hell, even when I was captain! the task force commander silently lamented.
Twenty-three years ago he'd started his naval career aboard a battered
Gilgamesh-class destroyer, and now he was commanding one of the largest task
forces the Union of Border Worlds currently fielded. And while that gave him a
great deal of power it also gave him a great deal of paperwork, exacerbated by
the fact that Task Force Jasmine was an ad hoc mixture of Navy ships with
Marine Corps, Space Force and Militia squadrons. The Nephilim are chaos
incarnate on the battlefield, so I wonder how they keep all their logistics
straight, the rotund officer mused as three people marched into his
quarters. "All right, Felix, what's the story?" he asked.
Commander Felix Abbott rarely smiled. He took his role as Task Force Jasmine's
intelligence officer extremely seriously. Then again, as far as Johnson knew,
he took everything seriously. The tall skinny bespectacled man was immaculately
precise in appearance, with even the creases of his uniform razor-sharp.
Luckily for Johnson and the Border Worlds taskforce that precision carried over
to his work as well. Now, however, his normally concerned expression was
several orders of magnitude more sombre. "Sir, Colonel Onslow and
Lieutenant Grimm have some news that I think you should hear. I feel that this
should be sent off to Looking Glass, but that's your decision as task force
commander," he advised.
The spook's recommendation made Johnson sit up and take notice even as he
gestured for his three unexpected guests to sit down. Abbott liked to have as
much data as possible before making a decision or recommendation, but he
wouldn't pass the buck just to avoid having to present an unpopular conclusion.
"All right, Paul," he asked the leader of the Scrappers. "Let's
hear it."
"Actually, sir, Tony found out the information so I'll let him present
it," Onslow disagreed before looking at the lanky blond pilot next to him.
"Tell him what you told me and Commander Abbott," he instructed.
Anthony Grimm swallowed nervously. This was the third time in an hour he'd
delivered an impromptu off-the-cuff briefing to a superior officer, and the shy
young man was no more comfortable now than when he'd first gone to his
commanding officer. The knowledge that his information could affect the future
of his entire nation didn't help in the least. "Sir," he began
woodenly, "approximately two hours ago my flight escorted a supply shuttle
to the TCS Hades. My wingman's F/A-43 had developed a minor coolant
leak, so we landed aboard the Hades so that their groundcrews could
conduct repairs. While I was on the Hades, I started chatting to a pilot
named Roger Elliot. He was one of the survivors from the Valley Forge -
actually, sir, he was also one of the two surviving pilots from the Bunker
Hill - and was fairly eager to talk about what happened aboard the Forge
during her last days." The blond Scrapper rolled his eyes. "Actually,
getting him to shut up was harder than getting him to talk about what had
happened," he noted dryly. "He gave me some very interesting
information from him about just why the Valley Forge was
destroyed."
"Didn't she self-destruct in Loki?" Johnson asked, his brow furrowed
in concentration. "Took out a Nephilim dreadnought that was caught in the
blast radius or something." He couldn't see just where this line of
thought was going, but he trusted Felix Abbott and Paul Onslow enough to know
that it was important.
“Yes sir,” the young Scrapper confirmed, warming to his story. “But she
suffered a lot of casualties in her flight wing and Marine detachment even
before the Loki battle due to what appear to be some pretty dubious tactical
decisions. And if what Chatterbox - I mean, Captain Elliot - is correct, those
decisions take on a whole new dimension."
"How so? And which decisions are you referring to?"
"The decisions to have the Forge's Marine detachment conduct not
one, but two, suicidal boarding missions against Nephilim vessels," Grimm
grated. "The decision to refuse to let damaged fighters land. The decision
to refuse to call for help from nearby forces, just like the Bunker Hill.
Those all fitted in with their plan, all right."
"Plan? Whose plan?" the commander of the Border Worlds reserves
demanded. It was plain that the kid had been nervous about telling his tale to
such a high-ranking officer, but the commodore sensed that they were
approaching the crux of the topic.
"The captain and executive officer of the Valley Forge planned to
have the carrier and her entire battlegroup eliminated through natural
attrition," the blond pilot said darkly, looking around the cabin at the
three officers. "Their goal was to let the group be wiped out so that a
gap in the Combined Fleet's line would open up. Then the Nephilim could either
head straight on into Confederation space, or destroy the rest of the Combined
Fleet and then run roughshod throughout this entire region of space.
Either way they got what they wanted - Confed worlds reduced to ash by the
Bugs."
"But why?" Philip Johnson demanded, rising from his chair to pace
around his cabin. "They were Confederation Navy officers, sworn to defend
-"
"So were the Black Lance," Anthony replied coldly. His audience
stared at him in shock, and the younger man smiled humourlessly. Paul Onslow
had already heard his story twice, and Commander Abbott had heard it once, but
it was still hard for them to believe. It had been hard for the rookie Scrapper
to believe when he'd first heard it aboard the Hades, but it made too
much sense to be disbelieved.
"The Lance were wiped out during the Huntdown. They haven't been heard
from since then," the taskforce's intelligence officer protested, his
first words since he had sat down. Anthony gave him a cool glance, his usual
shyness suppressed by the urgency of his news.
"Commander, if you believe that then you're definitely in the
minority," Grimm shot back. "The Black Lance are still out there -
maybe they aren't churning out GEs and Dragons anymore, but they're deeply
entrenched in Confed’s bureaucracy." He paused then added, "Deeply
enough to manipulate personnel assignments, such as the assignment of a captain
to a new carrier."
Commodore Johnson got the hint. "Lieutenant, are you saying that the
captain and XO of the Valley Forge were agents of the Black Lance?"
he asked incredulously.
Finally someone came out and said it, Anthony Grimm thought with an
almost palpable sense of relief. He nodded curtly. "Yes, sir. That's what
Captain Vandermann said on the Valley Forge's bridge when he denounced
his XO before he could self-destruct the ship. They both went back to the days
of Unit 212, the Belisarius Group, the whole kit and caboodle. They and their
supporters wanted the Nephilim to ravage a few Confed worlds and cause
panic."
"But why?" Johnson muttered half to himself. "What would they
get out of - oh my God. It's just like last time," he breathed. "They
get Confed into a war, arrange for a few massacres of civilians so they can
wave the bloody shirt in the Senate and get the entire Confederation to
militarise."
"And the entire Confederation becomes their tool to mold humanity however
they want," the blond young Scrapper agreed grimly. As if the Nephilim
don't give us enough to keep us busy…
FINIS