“Navigation! How long would it take for us to reach their home planet again from here?” I asked.
It took a few moments for Navigation to come up with the answer. “Two days.”
I said, “Plot a course to a suitable planet where we can do another slingshot to their home world. We’re going on the offensive again. I want to really embarrass that guy in back of us.”
There were smiles on the faces of everyone around the bridge as they glanced back to see what I was doing or thinking of, even though I had just spoken my mind. All I could do was return their smiles with one of my own.
Three hours later, we executed another slingshot maneuver. Shortly after we came out of it on course for the alien home world, the ship behind us started broadcasting to everyone of our intentions. I smiled as I sensed the welcoming party that would await us.
I said, “Communications, send the following coded message to Headquarters. Now is the time to strike the enemy home world. End message.”
The looks on most of their faces changed as they tried to comprehend what I was up to. I went ahead and answered their stares. I explained, “If the enemy has broken our code, then they won’t start pulling back to their planet to keep us away. They’ll do their best to stop any attacks away from their world and we’ll get a message that our folks can’t put together a strike. If our people say they’re on the way, then we’ll know that the code is still secure and we’re headed into a meat grinder. We’ll turn aside just before it’s too late. We might be brave, but we’re not stupid. I want to know why they’ve thrown so many ships at us and our people couldn’t put together an ambush before.”
We continued on for several hours before the coded reply came to us. Headquarters was still saying that they couldn’t do it because of the border situation.
I said, “Communications, send the following in the clear. Code broken. Enemy is reading messages. End message.”
Jean asked, “Are we still going in to attack?”
I replied, “Why not? They’re keeping their ships at the border. Most of them, anyway. What’s eighteen or twenty ships to us?”
There was some restrained laughter as my poor attempt at humor.
Then I said, “I want this to be like a drive-by shooting on old Earth a long time ago. I want us to be going by so fast that we’re nothing less than a blur and so close that they think we’re going to hit them. Then I want to break back to our side and pick up the new codes. I think we deserve a few days off in port. Besides, the combat videos might prove useful to our people.”
Suddenly, there were lots of smiles again on the faces of my bridge personnel.
Almost a day and a half later, we successfully managed to do another slingshot and pick up just a little more speed than before. We buzzed by the alien home world and shot off every gun we had at anything we could see. About the same time, the alien ships defending the planet tried to shoot at us. At least one of their shots went at their own planet, doubtless causing problems for one of their officers later. Our own shots were directed at the alien ships since there really wasn’t enough time to place shots against the planet itself and restrict the destruction to military installations. I was unable to see us or them score any hits on the other. At any rate, I know they missed us, just barely.
We swept by their planet with one ship still in pursuit of us. I’m sure, the captain of that ship must have been wondering what we were going to pull next. I’m sure he expected us to pull something. After all, we had attacked his home planet or the forces around it four times by then.
Our ship managed to come up fast behind one of the alien squadrons patrolling the border area where most of the fighting was occurring. They barely had any warning from the pursuing ship. Our guns were already firing at the tails of the squadron and scoring hits before we caught up and flashed by them quicker than they could respond to our sudden attack. Then we were no longer separated from our port by enemy ships. The pursuit dropped off once the enemy ship’s captain realized that we could now call in reinforcements.
Chapter 8
The combat videos revealed that we also took out one of the ships in the border squadrons as we broke out of enemy territory. Our score was one casualty for nineteen enemy vessels and a host of ground installations. I thought that we would be in port for two days at most, but the engineers who repaired our ship insisted on doing it carefully. We spent a week on the ground while most of the other battle reports continued to be much the same as before.
Not long after our combat videos were viewed, the whole crew was summoned to Headquarters and received decorations for their action against the enemy. For my own part, I was also promoted to Lieutenant Commander. It was still a temporary commission, but I was finally achieving parity with the members of my own academy class in rank. I had certainly surpassed them in achievements.
I thought that the repairs were taking too long and went to investigate after five days of waiting. I discovered that the Navy was replacing our Mark III duals with Mark III quads to increase our firepower to the rear. That was a welcomed discovery for me. Had the Thurman been a little larger, we might have been given some Mark IV quads. They were new and longer ranged than the Mark III’s and would have been a very welcome addition to the ship.
As well, our ship was very distinctive because of its half rust and half shiny exterior, courtesy of our stay inside the asteroid field. All that dust hitting the ship had scoured the rust off one side so that the ship appeared to be of two colors. I went back to Headquarters and suggested that some of the other ships our size ought to be painted to look like us just to confuse the enemy as to where we were, considering how badly we hurt the enemy. That was when I got the news I considered to be bad news. The next time I went out, I would be part of a squadron. I felt devastated almost at once when I heard that. That was the rest of the reason for us not being sent out sooner.
About the only thing good from the whole deal was that I was still the Captain of the Thurman. I still had the same crew, minus some of the extra gunners I took along before. The rest of the mission was doomed to disaster from the moment it was conceived by the moron who suggested it. How anyone thought that three ships could move into enemy territory and repeat what we did was irresponsible to me in its organization. What someone thought would happen was that three ships would do three times as much damage and destruction. Evidently they hadn’t learned from our reports how we actually performed our mission. We didn’t have to coordinate group movements while the enemy did. Now we were voluntarily tying one hand behind our back and trying to do the same thing. I knew right off that it couldn’t be done in the same way. I also expected my ship to get most of the attention because of our two-tone coloration.
I went about briefing my officers and crew, telling them that we couldn’t start blazing away at targets until we got the go ahead from the squadron commander. I didn’t tell them of my other plans. Those could be considered insubordination or desertion, though I wasn’t going to be running away from a fight. My only thoughts were to get my ship in the open where we could fight the way we knew how to fight best, with the best chance of both survival and success. I figured as long as they didn’t know ahead of time, I could give them that chance.