Star Force: Escalation (SF12) Page 4

  “Seven in,” he reported over his unit headset.

  The gunfire cut out a few seconds later, with the Seal pushing off a handhold in the direction of the sound and floating between unfinished walls that glistened with reflective thermal panels and lines of pipes and wires running up and down the hallway. When he got to the closest intersection he grabbed one of the pipes and stalled his momentum before he came into cross view, then pivoted around the corner with his weapon in his left hand and glanced down the fully paneled connective hallway.

  One of his fellow Seals was holding position at the base of a ladder, aiming his weapon upwards as several shell casings ricocheted down the hallway from the recent firefight. He caught sight of number 7 and waved him forward with a hand gesture, then gripped his M-46 with both hands and fired up the ladder well again, bracing his legs against the rungs to counter the recoil.

  “Iowa, do you copy?” the Seal team leader’s voice broke through the calm quiet on the American cruiser’s bridge.

  The Captain punched the response button, eager for an update. “We copy. What’s your status?”

  “We’re up against heavy…repeat, heavy resistance. We’ve secured and searched the bottom four floors of the base and found some sort of combat information center, but we have not located a means to open the outer doors and it is doubtful that we can proceed any further. Request permission to switch to an alternative plan.”

  The American Captain chewed on his lip. They’d known that reaching the door controls would be difficult, especially considering that they didn’t have a floor plan, but should they have been able to find and operate the controls it would have been too good an option to pass up, and given the zero g combat capability of the Seals it was probable that they could have secured most or all of the station themselves, so they’d decided to make that their primary mission objective.

  Secondary objectives had also been established in the likely event that the primary became untenable, which apparently it just had.

  “Can I assume that ‘heavy’ resistance precludes the reinforcement option?” the Captain asked.

  “50/50,” the Seal replied. “We might be able to take the complex, but casualties would be high.”

  “What’s the status on your team?”

  “One man down, two wounded. We’ve got our checkpoints secured for the moment, but we’re unable to push forward without walking into a wall of bullets. Please advise.”

  The Captain sighed. “Can your men still pull out?”

  “We stowed our suits on entry. They haven’t been hit.”

  “Pull what data you can from their computers then exercise the Davy Crockett option,” he ordered.

  “Aye, sir,” the Seal said, breaking contact with the ship as he informed his team of the new objective.

  One of the Iowa’s bridge crew glanced at the Captain. “Shall I ready the evac shuttles?”

  He nodded, but didn’t say anything further as he watched the visuals of the asteroid, wondering what exactly his men were up against in there. 18 minutes later the first signs of movement around the exit shafts manifested, jolting the Captain in his seat.

  “Get the shuttles moving,” he ordered just before the comm opened up again.

  “Iowa, can we arrange for a surface pickup or do you want us to jump back?”

  The Captain again personally handled the response. “Affirmative, shuttles are enroute. What’s your mission status?”

  “One moment, sir,” the Seal team leader answered, followed by 30+ seconds of waiting before one of the bridge crew reacted to the sensor displays.

  “Rad spike detected!”

  The Captain’s attention immediately was drawn to the bay doors on the asteroid…but no activity was visible. In fact, nothing on the exterior of the giant rock moved for a long time, then a thin plume of dust-like debris began to pour out of the elevator shafts like a slow moving geyser, propelled by the base’s atmospheric breach. Meanwhile the seal team members ‘walked’ further away from the shafts, clustering together and letting the microgravity hold them in place as they waited for evac.

  “Mission completed, sir,” the team leader finally responded.

  The Captain cracked a smile. “Were you able to recover any intel?”

  “We pulled the hard drives out of their computers. I don’t know how much the detonation might have affected them, but our comm gear doesn’t seem to be affected, though it is supposed to be EMP resistant.”

  “We’ll let the techs deal with that. Status on your wounded?”

  “All present and accounted for…and we have Ramirez’s body in a pressure suit.”

  “Very good,” the Captain said somberly. “Bring ‘em home.”

  “Aye, sir. Activating beacon for pickup.”

  The Captain leaned a bit further back in his chair, glad for the operation to be over. He’d hoped they’d have been able to capture the base, but he also had to admit there was a bit of poetic irony that they’d had to destroy it with a pocket nuke…a bit of payback for their shipyards.

  “Comm, get a message to the Australians,” he ordered, steepling his fingers in front of his chest. “Inform them that their neighbors have left town, and that we’ll be mowing their half of the yard from now on.”

  5

  May 11, 2108

  The British troop ship drifted snuggly up against the docking ring of American Habitat Block 18, a collection of 125 space stations tethered together in a giant cubicle grid 3.4 miles wide. Inside the cage-like external supports that kept the stations from drifting into one another as well as providing connective tram tunnels and a myriad of docking ports, a mass of movement was visible as each station’s rotating sections spun about, providing artificial gravity in a wide variety of designs.

  There was enough room to maneuver small ships in between the stations, but those spaces had been declared dead zones and all traffic to and from the Habitat Block was directed to the docking rings, so alongside the invading British transport hung dozens of civilian ships, with the debris of two American patrol ships floating a few kilometers off Earthward. The British ships that had destroyed them had taken up guard positions as several more troop ships arrived and began making docking runs against the unarmed American construct.

  The entire venture had been decades in the making, with 73% of the construction of Star Force make, cobbled together with the less than stellar work of competing corporations and the Americans’ own engineers. At present, there were 21 Habitat Blocks around Earth in orbital zone 6, only four of which were fully complete. All together they housed the 1.2 million civilians that made up the 54th American State, named ‘Nimbus.’

  The 55th and newest American state, named ‘Armstrong,’ was home to 550,000 Americans on Luna and had yet to be seriously threatened, due to the strength of the American army’s defenses, but give that Nimbus was entirely spacebound the naval superiority achieved in the Earth micro-system by the British/Japanese fleet left it vulnerable…a vulnerability that the British were now beginning to exploit.

  The troops being offloaded onto HB 18 met with light resistance from station security as they boarded, but were quickly engaged by Marine units once their point of entry was determined, beginning a long, drawn out engagement for the possession of each of the 125 composite stations within the block. The British deployed incoming transports to several different locations on the docking ring, attempting to flank the Marine defenders, but only to limited effect. They made initial progress, as the others had, until the Marine lines adjusted and attempted to push them back.

  The continuing inflow of British troops under the protection of their naval fleet kept that from happening, and from a combination of grit and sheer numbers the British slowly gained ground on 4 of the stations, eventually securing them and locking down their holdings before assaulting the others, which the Americans made difficult by disconnecting some of the tram tracks to limit their movement options.

  The British were persistent an
d determined on capturing the American ‘territory,’ and repositioned troops via transport to the other docking ring attachments, offloading additional boarding troops that fought their way into footholds on two more stations, after which a stalemate occurred as the number of British reinforcements began to thin. With nearly all his troops in play, the British commander shifted tactics and prepared for a long, drawn out engagement that he was certain the United Kingdom would win.

  If nothing else, the lack of resupply for the Americans would be their undoing…as well as for the thousands of civilians trapped on the station, most of which had been moved into American held sections during the fighting, making those stations overcrowded and stressing their available supplies even further.

  Content to be patient and confident of eventual victory, the British commander kept pressure on the Americans with continual, yet sporadic attacks, some coming from connecting tunnels, others from naval leapfrogs from one docking port to another. All throughout the British navy kept the American fleet at arm’s reach and their cargo ships away, pressuring the Marines to surrender in order to obtain supplies for the civilians they were protecting…but they were also being obstinate and held out with equal resolve.

  All the while, dozens of other combat zones were popping up around Earth orbit, with mixed results as both sides continued to feed assets into the fire of war, supplying additional personnel and resources from Earth while those on the planet watched, waited, and cheered on their native countries while Star Force’s fleet stayed out of the fighting, guarding their own facilities and those of the countries and corporations not involved in the conflict in an attempt to keep the war somewhat contained while they made their calculated moves elsewhere.

  An American convoy had just finished decelerating on the edge of the Mars micro-system, 28 ships in total including three warship escorts. Having been spread out during transit, the ships began to recluster together for the journey in towards the American stations in orbit serving as their makeshift starports now that the Star Force ones were off limits to their dropship fleet.

  The convoy had taken less than 3 weeks to arrive, thanks to the present orbital positions of Earth and Mars, which were both on the same side of Sol with Earth making the pass just inside Mars and cutting down the travel distances required dramatically. This was fortunate for all parties involved, and had both sides sending convoys to Mars to reinforce their fleets and troops.

  The Americans were determined to hold onto their naval dominance while pushing the ground war to the point where they could drive their enemies off the planet and lay claim to their territories. They weren’t there yet but with the supply convoys enroute, this being the first of 3, they figured that the extra reinforcements and supplies, namely small items and replacement tanks, would allow them to begin a second offensive, crushing the last of the British holdouts and beginning a serious ground campaign against the well dug in and unrelenting Japanese army.

  That wasn’t going to happen, however, because as the American convoy drifted further into the micro-system it was met by a pair of Star Force warships, a corvette and destroyer, demanding their surrender.

  The Americans outright refused, leery of getting into a military conflict with Star Force, and did not alter course as the Star Force ships held position. With both sides seemingly unwilling to blink, the convoy passed the two superior warships by virtue of its momentum, thinking that they’d called their bluff and dodged a bullet.

  That sentiment quickly vanished as the Star Force corvette and destroyer turned about and accelerated hard, matching speeds with the convoy and coming up on their heels. The destroyer fired off one of its pair of large lasers at range, clipping the top mounted, anti-missile chain gun on the American destroyer.

  Seeing that they were under attack, the 3 American warships turned about to engage the Star Force ships while the cargo ships accelerated and scattered, trying to run away from an engagement that the Americans were sure to lose.

  With the only anti-missile system in the convoy destroyed, the Star Force destroyer opened up her modular aft bay and released a swarm of small cubes that jetted forward on tiny engines towards the American destroyer that was coming nose to nose with its slightly smaller Star Force counterpart. The drones quickly crossed the gap between the slowly moving capital ships as the American vessel launched multiple salvos of missiles in a panic-stricken move, knowing it was outmatched.

  The drones passed the missiles by, already having moved away from the direct line to the destroyer to avoid its forward firing arc, as per the zonal movement restrictions the distant programmers had dictated. Everywhere on the American ship that had a weapons battery a conical ‘no go’ flight zone had been uploaded to the combat computer in each drone, telling it to avoid those firing arcs and to maneuver around elsewhere while they attacked the tagged locations.

  Those target tags came quickly enough from the remote pilots, and as the drones swarmed around the destroyer and accelerated to match its pace, they began firing their single small lasers out of six eye-like firing nodes in the center of each cubical face, reducing the amount of maneuvering jets required to line up a shot. The internal power supply was limited, so the recharge time on the capacitor was significant, but the lasers were able to fire off a shot every few seconds, and as a group the dozens of little cubes began picking away at the American’s weapon batteries and engines while the Star Force destroyer chopped away at the incoming missiles with its lasers and intercepts.

  Most of the missile storm was blunted, but a few stragglers managed to get by and hit the hull, spraying armor chips off into space but failing to penetrate. Unperturbed, the Star Force destroyer didn’t fire back in self defense, merely waiting for the drones to do their work and disable the American warship.

  Likewise, the Star Force corvette had moved off to engage the two American frigates, equally fending off missile attacks as it took its time to place precision shots from its single large laser into the enemy’s engines, disabling the movement of one while drawing the other off to engage it individually.

  The green naval commander followed, taking his wounded sister ship’s weaponry out of range as the dueling pair of warships exchanged short range fire. The American’s cannon got one solid hit in against the corvette’s hull before a precision laser shot took it out of the equation. Half a salvo of short range missiles also hit the Star Force ship, but the Herculium armor held up, shedding its outer layers while protecting the internal systems.

  Twenty minutes later the distant corvette had the American frigate disabled as the Star Force destroyer approached the other engine-damaged frigate, repeating its demands for a surrender as the ship redeployed the cubical drones that it had just recovered. The frigate’s submission came across the comm before the little war ‘dice’ got to the ship, with about half of them turning around and returning to the destroyer’s hold, neatly lining themselves up for capture by the four emerging robotic arms that returned them to their recharge slots.

  Fuel stores within the ship transferred over tiny amounts of liquid oxygen and hydrogen for their power cell and chemical thrusters while their twins held guard position over the frigate in case it changed its mind and decided to use the weaponry it still possessed. The corvette, meanwhile, chased down the closest of the cargo ships, disabling their engines and moving on to the next closest, leaving the crippled ships for the inbound SRs to capture while the destroyer held watch over the 3 captive warships.

  Four of the cargo ships managed to get away, but before they could rendezvous with any additional escort ships Star Force dispatched some nearby cutters to intercept. The ships surrendered before their engines were taken out, choosing to decelerate and power down rather than risk catastrophic damage to their ships should the engine-disabling shots miss or trigger secondary explosions.

  Those ships were then instructed to proceed to a set of orbital coordinates where an SR met up with the unmanned cutters and their captive ships, delivering the
replacement crews to take full possession of their bounty.

  Star Force repeated the process for the other two American convoys, as well as for one British and one Japanese, denying any reinforcements coming from Earth to the warring factions on the planet’s surface or resupply for those warships in orbit.

  Two weeks later an Archon-led strike force assaulted two American orbital refueling depots, seizing control of the stations and the attached cargo ships, then surrounding them with a halo of warships to discourage any naval reprisals. A week later they hit a Japanese station, then a British one three days later. Over the following month Star Force slowly picked away the refueling stations belonging to the warring factions while stationing guard ships at those belonging to the nonaligned nations.

  Coupled with the blockade, the Americans’ naval superiority around Mars slowly ground to a halt as their ships began to either run out of fuel or stop deployments to avoid such a fate, effectively neutralizing their orbital campaign as more and more inter-planetary starships arrived, delivering additional Star Force warships. Some came from fleet command at Venus, others from the expeditionary forces around Jupiter that were guarding the startup facilities there along with a pair of secret military shipyards kept off the public charts, but most of the fleet arriving at Mars was from the asteroid belt, now that those territories were fully under Star Force control.

  With the mass of firepower entering the micro-system, tracking data for which Star Force kindly forwarded to both warring factions, the Americans began consolidating their widely dispersed fleet with what fuel they had remaining, turtling up around key facilities while leaving others undefended in preparation for what was obviously building up to be a massive confrontation.