Chapter 1: The Plan

Explosions and the bright flash of energy weapons could be seen in every direction. Delta Company had made a textbook drop from orbit to test Sa'arm defensive capabilities and was getting its butt kicked.

"This isn't working, Commander Kehoe!" Lieutenant Timmons shouted into her implant. "As soon as we knock out the last position in a battery, the first one opens up on us again. It's like Iwo Jima all over again."

Both the Leopard bringing in reinforcements and the A20 covering it took anti-aircraft hits from positions flanking their approach vector. The two craft augured in after passing over Second Platoon. The Leopard barely missed them when it hit belly up no more than fifty meters away. The tougher A20 was a bit more graceful as it turned dirt into dust three hundred meters further away.

Timmons called down the medivac shuttles as her platoon started pulling survivors and bodies from the downed Leopard. Privates Fitzgerald and Sewell raced to the A20 in their commandeered six-wheel mule and pulled the injured pilot from the remains of his mangled craft. He triggered its self-destruct and the wounded craft turned itself into scrap metal before they rolled up to Timmons at the smoldering shuttle.

It looked like half the Sa'arm Units on Tulak were converging on them as the last of the casualties were pushed into the remaining medivac shuttles.

"Son of a bitch!" Master Gunnery Sergeant Raymond Budzinski shouted as he looked around at the ridges crawling with Sa'arm infantry. The Sa'arm didn't appear to have artillery support, but they were rapidly converging on the hopelessly outnumbered platoon.

The mule could outrun the Sa'arm units that were moving to close the only open gap available for the platoon's escape, but it could carry no more than six Marines. The small vehicle was intended to resupply a platoon in the field from the beachhead; not ferry a platoon around the battlefield.

Lt. Timmons was feeling a bit like General Custer as her troops fired ineffectively into the horde with small arms, mortars, and RPGs. They were killing Sa'arm units by the hundreds, but for every one that they dropped, three more topped the ridge.

"Miller!" Budzinski shouted, "Give me a hand up here!" He released the pulse cannon pod from the hardpoint on the Leopard. "Williams, give her a hand with this. Put it across the mule." Budzinski passed his end of the weapon to Williams and disappeared into the smoke filled interior of the wreckage.

The two Marines laid the cannon across the waist-high mule. Budzinski emerged from the Leopard with a power cell and cable. The improvised self-propelled artillery unit was far from stable and both Miller and Budzinski sustained serious internal injuries as they used it without a mount. But they were able to kill enough of the Sa'arm units with each blast to keep them thinned down to numbers that were manageable for small arms and hand-to-hand. The platoon managed to hold out until Timmons 'brought on the rain' from a flight of orbiting A20's. With rockets and cluster bombs they cleared a three hundred meter perimeter around the besieged platoon.

A Leopard came in behind the A20's and extracted Second platoon. Most of the casualties that boarded the shuttle were random body parts stuffed into body bags, but Timmons accounted for all forty-seven members of her platoon before she gave the loadmaster the thumbs up for dust off.

The A20's made a final pass and saturated the wide valley with ordinance seconds after the heavy explosion of the destruct package took out the classified equipment in the downed Leopard.

The Leopard started another descent to pick up a few stragglers from Fourth Platoon, but from the shuttle cockpit it looked like the ground opened up and swallowed the Marines right before the Leopard landed. The Leopard pilot aborted the landing and called for an airstrike. Two A20's streaked in and dropped Beehive cluster bombs over the pit while another two strafed and bombed the two small groups of Sa'arm units that were standing on high ground nearby.

The Leopard returned and deployed Second Platoon at the rim of the pit. Timmons and her platoon were only able to collect four bags of body parts from the pit before they returned to the assault ship overhead.

Major General Charles Allen collected the mission plan materials his staff had prepared and placed them in a briefcase before handing the locked case to his aide. It was time to present the plan to General Thornberry and hope that he would see the benefit of such a daring mission. The two officers made their way across the military complex on Dothan to General Thornberry's briefing room.

General Allen had sent General Thornberry a brief of the mission objectives and was relieved to see that it had been included on today's agenda. When the box above it was checked off, Thornberry turned to Allen, "Tell us about gathering data on the Sa'arm underground installations, Charles."

General Allen's aide, Major Charlotte Wilson, queued the presentation on the projector. The general stood and began speaking. "Every time we've attempted to penetrate a Sa'arm underground installation we get our heads handed to us. All attempts to probe their warrens have resulted in the destruction of the probe shortly after it penetrates the outer defenses. We have no accurate data on the structural integrity, general layout, sensors, or defense mechanisms used in Sa'arm warrens. We do know that they can disgorge more Sa'arm units and weapon systems than we can counter, and nothing we've attempted to date has provided any reliable intelligence on how their installations can be breached or neutralized."

The bored faces around the room discouraged Allen, but he pressed forward. "We need to examine the interior of their underground facilities to learn how deep they go, where we can expect alternate access points to appear, and how we can defeat their security systems. We believe we can do all of these things if we can find an abandoned facility."

A few faces perked up and started paying attention as General Allen continued, "A likely place to find such a place is on a world that has been depleted of its resources and abandoned, a world that is probably deep within Sa'arm occupied space."

"My staff has prepared a mission plan to find such a world, gather detailed intelligence about their most secret places, and return with valuable data about their structure, layout, and defenses. The analysis of this new data can then be used to develop weapons and tactics for neutralizing their underground facilities. Until these installations can be breeched, we are, at best, only fighting a delaying action."

Major Wilson displayed the slide with the recommended order of battle.

Before General Allen could continue, Rear Admiral James Forney spoke up, "My God, Man! That isn't a reconnaissance mission; it's a damned invasion force! We can't possibly divert that kind of resources just to find out where the Sa'arm live and breed."

Even General Thornberry was critical, "At this juncture I have to agree with Admiral Forney. There's no chance that any force we send that deep into Sa'arm territory can be expected to fight its way out. If it's a division that gets caught on the ground, then we'll lose a division. If it's a hundred ships that are jumped by a hive fleet, then we lose a hundred ships."

Thornberry sighed, "I agree that intelligence about what they have buried out of our sight is something that we must have, and your concept is a sound way of getting that intelligence. Let's revisit this after you've cut the resources to the minimum that can accomplish the mission within a year. Remember, it has to be a force that we can afford to lose if they're caught by surprise."

"Yes, sir," Allen replied. What else could he say?

General Allen appeared calm through the balance of the meeting, but Major Wilson knew he was pissed. Generals don't like to be embarrassed by anyone at any time, and to have to just stand there and take it made it worse. She had tried to counsel him to get the opinion of some of the other panel members before presenting his plan, but it wouldn't be politic to mention that now.

On the way outside the general didn't even look at her. He just said, "Take care of it."

"Yes, sir." Major Wilson had no problem talking to generals. She knew just what to say to them. She sympathized with Allen's concubines, though. They were going to catch hell for the next few days. Men with bruised egos could be such little boys.

Back in her office she did a search of personnel in or near Dothan. She needed someone who could give her the probability of a ship finding an abandoned Sa'arm planet. Ensign Mark Wallace had been an astronomer and astrophysicist before being extracted from Earth, and he was right here on Dothan being trained in surveillance and sensor analysis. He sounded like the perfect candidate. During a quick call to Wallace's commanding officer Wilson assured the colonel that Major General Allen would be grateful for the favor. He gave her immediate access to Ensign Wallace.

With the standard Marine enhancement package Ensign Wallace no longer looked like a geek, but only a dedicated nerd could have the focus required to run the hundreds of simulations that he created using what was known about the stars in the suspected Sa'arm section of the Orion Spur. Wallace calculated that a K'treel class explorer should be able to locate a planet matching the criteria in about a year. It would need three months to get into the target area and another nine months of searching.

Major Wilson reviewed Ensign Wallace's results. It was clear to her that three small ships should be used to conduct the search, with a fourth ship acting as command and control as well as providing transportation for the ground units.

The sensors recommended by Ensign Wallace allowed spectral and gravitational analysis of stars as well as atmosphere analysis of planets. High-resolution laser and radar systems permitting detail mapping of the surface of most any type of planet, moon, or asteroid were part of the recommended equipment. The package was much more sophisticated than the one normally found on even K'treel exploration ships. And, this was going to be a military reconnaissance mission into enemy territory, not a jaunt into unexplored space. It was a job for the Navy, not the Fleet Auxiliary.

Major Wilson requested a meeting with Admiral Forney's staff to determine what ships could be made available from the vessels that the Navy was holding in reserve.

Forney's aide, Lieutenant Colonel Carl Segal, offered, "There are eleven of the Sir Lancelot Class assault ships that are not likely to be required for some time. They're being phased out and replaced by the Tarawa Class ships. But even the Tarawas aren't in demand at the moment. The Marines keep getting their butts kicked when they show up in force."

Wilson displayed discomfort when responding, "I don't know, Colonel. This mission is deep into Sa'arm-controlled space and will require orbiting a planet. It's not really the ideal setting for a large, unarmed ship. What can you spare that's small, fast, armed, and expendable?"

"You're making this sound like a suicide mission," Segal frowned. "I don't like sending ships on suicide runs."

Wilson nodded, "That's why I believe that using a fleet of unarmed and unescorted Sir Lancelot assault ships is a formula for disaster. Admiral Thornberry seems to think that whatever we send will be destroyed if they encounter the Sa'arm. I'd hate for it to be something as big as an assault ship."

"Well," Segal sat back considering the possibilities, "There's a small selection of Castle class corvettes that could probably be spared for a year, but they don't have the capability of carrying the sensor package you need. Plus, there's no way you could squeeze even a platoon of Marines into a corvette!"

Wilson thought about the limitations of the Castle class corvettes and proposed, "What about three corvettes to do the surveying and scouting with a single close-support carrier to bring in the Marines once the target area has been secured by the corvettes?"

Segal shook his head, "We can't spare a carrier. It's taking all of the carriers and heavy cruisers we can muster to hold the blockade at Tulak. Those Sa'arm bastards have been consistently increasing the size of the fleets being sent both to and from Tulak in their attempt to reestablish communication between Tulak and the rest of the Sa'arm collective. These larger fleets entering in force is why we've had to withdraw the corvettes. They were too much at risk of getting slaughtered even as pickets."

"Uh huh," Wilson acknowledged; then asked, "How about cutting down the troop capacity of a Sir Lancelot assault ship and adding some minimal weapons to give it a chance to make a hole and run? It could also assume the role of fleet command and control for the three corvette scouts."

"That make sense," Segal agreed. "But you still wouldn't have a place on the hull of a Castle class corvette for all of the sensors you require." Segal brought up the specifications for the Castle Class vessels. "They have a tough spine, but anything projecting very far from the hull behind this forward section will interfere with the particle beam projectors and possibly throw the ship out-of-balance."

A junior member of the Admiral's staff, Commander Sarah Bronson had been sitting quietly, but suggested, "We could remove both of the outdated particle beam projectors. One turret could be replaced with Wallace's wish list of sensors, and the other replaced with one of the new 130mm plasma cannons. Each one of these new cannons is more powerful than the combined output of both of the projectors currently installed on a corvette. The point-defense units could also be upgraded to use the new high-speed 38mm pulse cannons that are effective against lightly armored ships as well as being lethal to missiles."

"The plasma cannons are heavier and require a lot more power that the particle beam projectors," Segal was shaking his head. "However, if I understand Major Wilson's mission, they'll be running if the Sa'arm show up; not charging into them. The arc plasma torpedo is only effective against targets in front of the corvette. Bronson, see what escape tactics you can develop if we replace the torpedo room with Wilson's sensors and upgrade both projectors to 130mm plasma cannons."

Bronson responded, "I'll get on it right away, sir."

Looking at Wilson he said, "Let's give Bronson a chance to work that problem and reconvene in three days."

"Very good, Colonel," Wilson agreed. "Thank you both for your time."

Commander Bronson was an experienced spacecraft engineer, but three days? The massive spacecraft, including the relatively small Castle class corvettes, were a mix of nautical and aeronautical engineering nightmares. Even with the compensators, the thrust of the powerful sub-light and FTL engines used on starships could flex sections of the hull about undesired pivot points when an off-center mass creates unexpected moments of force on the frame. Weight distribution in the long vessels was often more critical than the total mass.

Bronson knew that this was an important assignment and didn't want to rush into it tired. She had gathered up the specifications for the proposed ships and equipment and headed home to her Swedish bath to clear her head and think.

After the heat of the bath had drained her, she had her only male concubine, Hasid, work the remaining tension out with a full body massage. Hasid was very skilled with his hands ... and other body parts. Bronson delighted in dominating the large Turk that she had selected during her extraction from the exotic coffee house in New York, but it was a bit like keeping a tiger as a pet. She never knew when he might rebel and fight back, but as the only male in her stable of four concubines, Hasid was kept amused day and night.