He turned and headed back out, the missiles continuing in pursuit but far to the rear.
“Tarawa Combat Information.”
“Tarawa here.”
“How goes it?”
“Incoming fighter attack destroyed, lost one fighter, one seriously damaged.”
He didn’t want to ask who was going to be scratched off the list.
“Uploading additional information on the second moon. Found one hell of a fat and juicy target. Here comes the information; be sure to pass it on to the marines.”
He hit the upload and within a second a burst signal forwarded the data.
As he continued to climb back out he passed through where the swirling battle had been, only moments before. Several Kilrathi fighters were still making sweeps on Kagimasha, which had taken a hit to its main engine. As Jason closed in, a wing of four fighters from Tarawa closed and within seconds the fight was over.
“Grierson, you get the transmit of camera footage?”
“Saw you going down, so I thought I’d listen in.”
Jason smiled. Grierson was definitely on top of things, the type of commander who knew when and where to listen and when to move.
“We could set the furballs back months, maybe two or three years, balance the odds up a bit. Not just the carriers but the work yards as well. It’s the best damned target I’ve ever seen!”
“I’ll start to soften ’em up.”
Pushing the afterburners up, Jason headed back to the Tarawa.
“Let’s go for it,” Merritt said, grinning with delight, slamming his fist on the hard copy photos spread out on the table.
“How long will it take?” O’Brian asked quietly.
“Those are hardened sites; capital ship bombardment won’t do it. Oh, it’ll loosen things up, but we want the machinery, the docks, the stuff that makes the ships, and yes, the trained construction personnel as well. Each one of them is far more important in this war than any Imperial Guard soldier and has to be treated that way.”
He looked over at Jason.
“They’re in this war as well, even if they aren’t carrying guns.”
“I know that,” Jason said quietly, hating to agree but realizing that Merritt was right.
“That means going in, placing matter/antimatter mines, blowing it apart piece by piece from the inside. We’re just looking at the surface stuff in these photos. I’m willing to bet there’s a hell of a lot more buried underneath.”
“That moon’s got a thin atmosphere, but not enough to support life for long. Smash the barracks and living facilities while we’re at it and really mess them up.”
He scanned the computer-generated map which was covered with tactical symbols that to Jason were something of a mystery, but to ground assault troops defined every detail of what they were going in to hit.
“Thirty hours standard should do it all. I’ve got ten landing ships, five hundred people. There’s at least a hundred or more juicy targets down there.”
“I thought just six, the carriers,” O’Brian replied.
“Those ships go through a series of assembly and fitting-out points. We’re going for the lot, including the cruiser construction and fighter assembly. Thirty hours.”
“Damn it. We made it here,” O’Brian snapped. “I say we sweep past, bombard, and get the hell out. Swing by Kilrah and launch a missile spread, then we can claim to be the first to have ever hit their home planet. We’ll be heroes. We could do that within an hour and be on our way. Their carriers could be popping through at any time and when they do I plan to have us out of here.”
“I’m in charge of ground operations,” Merritt replied softly, “and I’m launching to nail the fleet base. Gods, there isn’t a marine alive who wouldn’t beg for this chance to kick those furballs right between the legs, and here it is. I was itching to get at their capital and smash it up a bit too, but this is more important, this is the stuff that will affect what happens out in the real war rather than some stupid headline-grabbing for propaganda. Think of it, man, a couple of marines with a mine killing a carrier, something it’d take an entire fleet to do in a stand-up fight if those ships ever get operational. We could even the war up and do a job that would—if we got lucky—cost tens of thousands of lives if those carriers ever get a chance to fly.”
“I’m ordering you not to.”
“Go to hell,” Merritt said with a grin. “Either you bring this ship into launch and support range or by God I’ll shoot you right here and do it myself.”
Jason swallowed hard, looking over to O’Brian to see how he’d react. O’Brian started to sputter, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“When we get back I’ll see you shot for this,” O’Brian finally hissed. “I will stay alive if only to bring you back in order to see that.”
“Getting back,” Merritt laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. Now pass that order and I’m not threatening you, Captain. I’m dead serious about this.”
Jason noticed that Merritt had casually unsnapped the flap of his pistol holster, the weapon fully exposed.
O’Brian finally turned in his chair and punched the commlink channel to the bridge.
“Move us up to a one-hundred-thousand-kilometer strike range against the moon,” he barked, and then slammed the channel off.
“Now clear the launch area or my people will do it for you.”
Jason looked over at Merritt and grinned.
“See you down there, sir.”
“Jump transit in ten minutes, sire.”
Prince Thrakhath, trying to suppress a growing rage, nodded at his new astronavigator. The navigator was obviously nervous.
“Just do it right,” the Prince said coldly.
He turned and stalked away.
It happened, there was nothing he could do to change that. Every once in a while a transit jump point shifted unexpectedly or simply closed down. Now, of all times, why now? The last jump, which should have taken them into the home world, putting them there hours ahead of the Tarawa, had gone awry, and they had instead jumped to the next system beyond Kilrah, forcing them to turn around and try it again. The last navigator was dead in atonement for what might have been simple bad luck. But in war some individuals were lucky, others not, and he had no room on his staff for the latter.
Jason circled back out around the Tarawa, watching as the last of the marine landing craft lumbered out of the docking bay.
The landing craft turned, kicking up its afterburners.
“Going in now!”
“We’re with you, Cat Killers,” Jason said in reply, trying to keep the lump out of his throat as he watched Svetlana’s ship turn in towards the moon.
Intrepid and Kagimasha had pounded the moon for the last hour, suppressing ground-to-space defenses enough to allow Tarawa to close within a hundred thousand clicks. A steady stream of Kilrathi fighters were coming up from the main planet, and down from a base orbiting a gas giant which was over a hundred million clicks away. But they were coming in disjointedly, in small waves of not more than eight or ten. He had lost four fighters and four recon so far in defense, but they were still holding their own. From the way the Kilrathi were flying, he suspected that they were now sending in trainee pilots scrambling up from flight school bases. It was a murderous waste of future talent, and he was glad to dispatch them now, rather than have to face them when they were fully honed for combat.