Chapter 14

For the best part of two weeks, Marlon preyed on the less capable Zytol ships. During his brief spell on New Woden he had had the opportunity of watching some big cats hunt for food and now the Scout was acting in a similar fashion.

The lions, leopards and cheetahs all worked a variation on a theme. They would pick out an animal that had wandered away from the herd and then focus on taking it down. The lions tended to hunt as a pride, but Marlon couldn't do that of course — still, the idea of picking ships off one by one was an effective one and he was using it successfully.

The Scout drifted slowly towards Woden as Marlon waited for the moment to fire his torpedoes. The repeated practice had ensured that his crew were now expert at knowing exactly when a Zytol ship was within range. The torpedoes didn't have the same range as the Scout's scanners and that introduced a slight element of danger (to Marlon's mind it was slight anyway) in that the Zytol would normally pick them up just as the weapon was launched.

The first sign was normally the Zytol ship manoeuvring rapidly to try to evade the Scout. That took a number of different forms, as the Zytol tried to learn from each loss that they suffered. Very quickly they had realised that they had to turn away from the Scout to try to put as much distance between them as possible.

What the Zytol didn't realise was that the greater range of the Scout's scanners meant they were able to keep them pinpointed no matter what trick they tried to shake her off. Marlon could simply guide the torpedoes by computer until their own guidance systems locked onto the unfortunate Zytol ship and then homed in for the kill.

The crew began to refer to the frantic manoeuvring as the 'Zytol twist' and it was becoming something of a game to try to guess what tactic each of their targets would try.

"Zytol twist, Captain!" cried Beegs.

"Torpedoes one and two launched! Weapons running true," called out the Weapons Officer.

"She's diving for the surface of the planet, Captain, that's a new one. If we miss there's s danger of hitting some of our own citizens on the ground!" warned Beegs.

"Best to make sure that we don't miss then, wouldn't you agree Weps?" said Marlon.

The weeks of uninterrupted success had helped to build Marlon's confidence even higher than it had been before. So far they had taken down twenty-four Zytol craft, almost two a day and Marlon could see that there was new-found respect for him in the eyes of the crew on the bridge.

The fear that had been crippling some people onboard the Scout had receded, as the weeks passed without any danger to them or the ship. Each new success was celebrated throughout the Scout and all of the screens kept a running tally of the number of ships that had been destroyed.

"The weapons have acquired the ship, Captain, they're homing in now. Estimated time until impact is twenty-two seconds," advised the Weapons Officer.

The fact that there was no hint of tension on the bridge testified to how routine the 'hunt' was becoming and Marlon actually switched his attention to something else entirely.

"Put up the plots of the Zytol forces on the planet's surface," he ordered.

Over the past two weeks, the crew had worked tirelessly to pinpoint where all of the Zytol troops were down on their home planet. Now an image of Woden appeared on the screen and small purple points of light flashed to show where the enemy was located.

Marlon broke off from studying the plots to acknowledge the fact that another Zytol ship had been claimed.

"Impact! Both torpedoes have found their mark, Captain. Scanners show that the Zytol ship is crippled," advised the Weapons Officer.

"Thank you Weps, good shooting as usual," commended Marlon, as he focused again on the screen at the front of the bridge.

Their intelligence told them that there were no large concentrations of Zytol troops at any location on Woden. Marlon saw that as a positive in that it meant his relatively small band of trained troopers could possibly begin to pick the Zytol off group by group. The only thing that had stopped him from tele-porting some of his men down to the surface was the atmosphere.

Ben's guess about the collective embarrassment of the Wodenites over the state of their planet's air was partially correct. The Wodenites knew about the issue and they were embarrassed, but Ben's suggestion that they were all in denial about the problem wasn't quite right. Rather it was an unwritten law in Wodenite society that no one mentioned the loss of the ozone layer. It was considered crude and unpardonable for anyone to do so.

Now Marlon knew he had to contend with the poor air quality if he was going to land his men and he had had Tippen the engineer working on something that would help them breathe ever since they had charted their course for Woden some four months before.

"AI, ask Tippen to come to the bridge to give me an update on the breathing apparatus," Marlon ordered.

"Aye, Captain," the AI responded.

It took the engineer, Tippen, some ten minutes to reach the bridge and by then Marlon was growing impatient. He had barely walked through the door before Marlon was demanding to know what progress had been made.

"Have you managed to overcome the problems you described the last time we met?" asked the Captain.

"I'm sorry, Captain, but no. I've designed and produced a unit that works, but it's altogether too heavy to be carried into battle and it only gives several hours of breathable air," replied Tippen.

"Didn't you learn anything from Thomas during all those hours you spent with him? How am I supposed to put troops on the ground if they can't breathe, tell me Tippen? How am I supposed to do that?" snapped Marlon.

The taboo nature of talking about the planet's atmosphere had meant that all of the discussions about breathing apparatus had been held in Marlon's stateroom up until now. There was no doubting what the conversation between Marlon and Tippen was about however, and Beegs' ears pricked with interest.

"Captain, forgive me for intruding on your conversation, but I've already tried to point this out to you once before," said the Navigator.

"What is it now, Beegs?" rapped an annoyed Captain.

"You'll recall that I suggested that the planet's ozone layer was back, but you were more interested in other things at the time to listen," ventured Beegs.

"What of it man?"

"Well, I couldn't help but overhear what you were talking to Tippen about. What I was trying to say before was that the air quality on the planet has improved dramatically with the ozone layer now back in place. The readings on my scanners suggest that there's no need for breathing apparatus," said Beegs.

"Are you sure? How is that possible?" demanded Marlon.

"I'm positive, Captain. It might not be as clean and sweet as the air on New Woden, but it's perfectly safe to breathe," confirmed Beegs.

Marlon realised that this news changed things dramatically. There was no longer any need to wait for Tippen to develop technology to assist the troopers and he could in effect proceed with ground operations whenever he liked.

"AI, have the leaders of the four groups of ground forces meet me in my stateroom immediately please," he ordered. "Hansa, assume command while I deal with this."

The four group leaders were clearly nervous when they arrived in the stateroom. Being called to meet with the Captain could only mean one thing — they and their troops were about to see some action.

None of the new leaders was confident about the role that they were being asked to perform. If asked, they would have made it clear that all of the squads missed the leadership of the Benites that they had served with — Simon, Kirsty, Ben Jr. and Jenny. That had been natural leadership and the troops had quickly grown confident in the Benites' abilities, their capacity to make smart decisions and instinctively know what course of action to follow. The Wodenite leaders were candid in admitting they couldn't do the job nearly as well.

Amongst the troopers, the loss of the Celestialites who had bolstered some of the squads was also seen as a huge loss. On the positive side, the trained troopers were nervous about going into battle, but not to the point that they wouldn't be able to function as they had been trained to do.

"I've just found out that there is nothing holding us back from deploying you and your troopers on the planet's surface," Marlon began once all of them had seated themselves.

"Oh, so Tippen has come up with something to help us breathe?" asked Carson, the new leader of what had been the blue group.

"No, not exactly," Marlon replied, "it seems that Woden's ozone layer has repaired itself and as a result the air quality has improved quite a bit, so much so that it's safe to breathe. So, there's nothing in the way of us beginning ground operations immediately!"

The four exchanged looks — their guess had been on the money, they were going into battle.

"What targets have been selected for us?" asked Arnold, leader of what had been the red group.

"Targets? Isn't that your job?" asked Marlon with surprise.

"No it's not! With something on this scale someone else decides what the priorities are, not us. Our job is to plan how we are going to hit the targets," said Carson in disbelief.

Marlon realised that he had overlooked the need to plan a ground campaign as such. He wasn't used to the idea of any kind of warfare yet, and a ground offensive was about as far out of his comfort zone as it was possible to get.

"Wasn't that part of your training?" he asked. "What did you do for ten weeks if you didn't cover this kind of thing? I mean, I'm Captain of a ship, not a commander of ground forces. I fight other ships or fire on things from space for goodness sake!"

The four group leaders could see that Marlon wasn't going to be of any great help unless they calmed him down and started him thinking about what targets would have most impact.

"You don't need to be an infantry officer to plan a campaign, Sir. What's required is some strategic thinking, that's all," offered Arnold.

"What do you mean?" asked Marlon.

"Well, we could start with what our strategic objectives are," said Carson. "At a guess I'd say that they were to liberate our planet and hopefully defeat the Zytol so they are no longer a threat. That would certainly include nullifying all of their ships. From those strategic objectives will flow other objectives, for example, there should probably be something in our mission plan about ensuring civilian casualties are minimised — troops losses too for that matter.

"Do you want the main cities liberated first or the rural areas? What about arming the civilians? Should we try to secure food supplies? Manufacturing capacity? Infrastructure? What support can we expect from the Scout once we're down there? Basically we need some mission parameters Captain."

"But I thought you'd all just tele-port down there and start to pick off the Zytol group by group!"

"We shouldn't all go down at once, Captain. They certainly taught us that, some troopers have to be held back as a reserve in case the ones that do go down get into more trouble than they can handle," objected Carson.

"But if you get into trouble we'd just tele-port you back onboard. Where's the risk in that?" asked Marlon.

"Captain, can you use the tele-port facilities while the ship's shields are up?" asked Arnold.

Marlon's face turned red as he realised the answer to the question was 'no'. The other group leaders could see what the answer was by his reaction.

"Isn't it highly likely that you're going to be continuing to engage the Zytol ships while we're down there? If you are, then you're going to need the ship's shields up, so the likelihood that you're going to be available at a moment's notice to whisk us out of danger seems remote," suggested Carson.

Marlon had recovered from his embarrassment by now and he tried a different tack.

"But you all have your individual shields, how could you be at risk? Surely putting the four groups down at once will mean we can end the Zytol occupation of Woden that much quicker?" he asked.