Chapter 41

‘How goes the resource gathering?’ the senior Master asked the collected group of Masters overseeing the operation.

‘We successfully regrew the storage and processing vessels and have now begun to fill them again,’ the head of the group replied.

‘What of their security?’

‘We are keeping them near our core vessels and using smaller tenders to bring the materials to them. Inefficient but, we believe, effective.’

‘Yes, the group looking for any observation craft or sensor devices of this prey report no findings of any such in their search. We must presume they have hidden them well and still observe us,’ the senior Master informed the group.

‘This is unfortunate. Are this prey more advanced than we are?’

‘That is a conclusion I am fast coming to. More advanced and quite warlike.’

‘Can we win?’

‘I believe so, though it could be so costly as to have not been worth the effort.’

‘What is the control group’s recommendation?’

‘That we fight.’

‘That is somewhat disturbing.’

“Come in, sub-Commander Kiria, and take a seat,” Commander Gust ordered me as I attended a meeting of the senior Command staff.

“Thank you, sir,” I saluted then sat.

Several other Commanders arrived, including those in a similar position from our Allies until finally the meeting, led by Marshall Queyon who had arrived with the last re-supply fleet, got underway. I did note that I was only one of two lowly sub-Commanders from the Empire in the meeting and wondered if I was in for a baptism of fire.

“Greetings, fellow warriors,” Queyon began, using the standard form for greeting those of differing Allies attending a command meeting. “The purpose of this meeting is to inform you of the upcoming campaign and the roles you will be required to play in it. We expect you to respond with plans and liaise amongst yourselves to avoid treading on each other’s toes with regards to logistics and tactics.”

“You do not intend to interfere with our tactical or command situations?” someone the AIs identified as Taewonsu Herch of the Hegemony queried.

“No, we’ll tell you what we want, after that, it’s up to you how you go about it ... within reason,” Queyon replied.

“Will we be able to request support if necessary?” Field Marshall Coronavillo of Gershon asked.

“Yes. Fleet will be providing you with liaison support for that purpose.”

“How long until we move out?” Stratigos Loonata of the Melanoqi wanted to know.

“An Imperial binary cycle,” Queyon answered. “We estimate that they will have filled their re-supply needs by then.”

“I see.”

“Draw up your plans for the boarding operations and, if necessary, practise them in the junkyard where we have various alien ships to rehearse on. Try to keep casualties to a minimum as we want them to run out of ships before we run out of Troopers.”

“And the name of this mission?”

“Operation Underdog.”

The meeting then broke up into small groups of Allies as various mission packs were presented to them and they went over what it was they had to do.

“Your thoughts, sub-Commander?” Gust asked me.

“Unsure as to the need for a face-to-face meeting,” I replied with a slight frown.

“Ah, protocol,” he nodded. “Plus, it puts a human face on those from whom we may request aid.”

“I see,” I nodded, recognising the truth of it. “Not sure why I’m here though, other than a learning experience.”

“You’ll be my second-in-command, as well as my trouble-shooter. Expect to be busy,” he chuckled.

“Yes, sir!” I replied with a salute.

“Now, come with me and I’ll introduce you to the Marshall.”

“So, you’re the young lady that has my training group all flustered?” Queyon asked me after the formal introductions.

“I ... couldn’t possibly comment,” I replied, somewhat confused.

“Ah, right. I doubt they told you that you had the highest score on record for the Advanced Officer Training course?”

“No, sir. They did not.”

“Well, you did. Hence your inclusion in this get together as Gust’s aide.”

“I’m honoured, sir. However, I feel there is so much more I need to know before being allowed to command Troopers at a tactical level.”

“You do lack seasoning. However, do not let that detract you from simply doing your best,” Queyon nodded. “Understudy Commander Gust, follow his instructions and if you don’t understand, ask.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, hopefully you’ll grasp how to handle a larger group of Troopers and move upwards. We have all too few senior Officers with an ability to shine, they simply follow the script. You showed an ability to improvise and overcome. That’s rare, young lady.”

“Thank you, sir,” I replied with a blush.

“Good luck and don’t let what I said go to your head. Believe me, it’s way too easy to shleck up at this level.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. Kiria,” Gust began. “Our job will be to co-ordinate over a thousand landing craft and boarding pods. They’ll be going after various alien ships in an attempt to whittle down the aliens to the point where our Fleets can finally defeat them in detail. In short, it’s a massive expansion of what we’ve been doing.”

“The AIs can handle most of that,” I nodded. “However, I take it we’ll be guiding extra units to bottlenecks and deciding how best to break them open?” I asked.

“That’s correct. Sounds simple, unlikely to be so.”

“We’ll need some specialised teams, heavy weapons, infiltration, technical experts and rapid response units to reinforce the boarding squads, either in defence or attack.”

“And many of them made up on the fly,” Gust nodded.

“Sounds challenging,” I grinned.

“It will be. We need to get this right or millions of lives could be lost and the aliens free to roam the galaxy again.”

I spent the next work period going over the various Ground Force specialists the re-supply had brought and were attached to Gust’s Division. It came as no real surprise to find that we had many such who had been spotted by the AIs and given specialist training during their time of service. Of particular interest to me were those who could construct, via nanites, emergency airlocks and bridging tubes. Those I planned to have available with the rescue squads I was setting up. I had also contacted Fleet Engineering to have several of their Engineers assigned to the Division in case we needed specialised equipment made rapidly to get past the aliens, who would no doubt be doing their level best to stop us destroying their ships.

Both Flinn and Torun were doing the Healer thing whilst I puzzled over the problem dropped in my lap by Higher Command, though naturally enough were free with advice if asked.

“Biggest problem you’ll have is getting a specialist crew quickly to where they are needed,” Flinn commented.

“I know, having them all sitting in a vessel close enough to be useful just makes them a big target should the aliens spot us,” I nodded.

“Don’t want them getting bored either,” Flinn chuckled.

“True, might be worth attaching them to various squads if I can pull them out quickly,” I answered thoughtfully.

“You’d need a landing craft available to do so; you can’t just abandon the squad on the alien ship to move your specialist to where they are needed.”

“I know. It’s driving me nuts,” I sighed. “I’m going to have to go with assigning them all to various landing crafts, attach them to support a regular squad, and hope they don’t run into trouble as well.”

“Compromises,” Flinn nodded. “Great if they work, but...”

“Yep, the joy of Higher Command,” I chuckled wryly.

“You’ll do fine, Kiria,” Flinn replied. “Things will go wrong, but you have a talent for overcoming them.”

“I’m going to have to this time. I’m kind of in charge.”

“Rather you than me,” Flinn grinned.

“Thanks.”

Admiral Clessik frowned at the latest info to come in from the scouts observing the aliens.

“Clearly those aliens have learned a few things from the last time, sir,” Gollant said thoughtfully.

“That they have. We’d never get away with a raid like we did last time,” Clessik nodded. “Still, this time we’re not raiding, we’re going in for a killer punch.”

“They’re still scattered all over the system, apart from their command vessels,” Gollant pointed out. “Just they have beefed up the various scattered parts which are mining resources.”

“Making them tough nuts to crack,” Clessik nodded. “However, I believe that Ground Force and their massed saboteur squads will deal with that issue whilst we keep reinforcements away from them when they do.”

“And if that works, we go after the main targets, their command ships,” Gollant agreed.