William Fortchen - Action Stations

Could he have sent his friend into the border region to look for information? Granted, there would be nothing direct. The fleets were being held well back of the line, though the Sixth Fleet of the Claw was departing even now, since it had the furthest to go, in order to line up on the flank of the region the humans called the Landreich. Was there a chance this human could stumble on that? And even if he didn't, rumors were beginning to sweep the Empire. Every member of the fleet had been placed on active status, reserves who were retired out of active service in their fortieth year were being recalled. Commercial shipping was nearly at a standstill as every available craft was pressed into service to provide support and supplies for the attack. That, in and of itself, was the one weak point of his plan. Though he had pressed for the construction of a thousand transports whose sole purpose was military support, none had ever been constructed. Already there was signs of economic disruption as certain crucial goods were no longer being moved between worlds. The cover regarding the war being fought in the Facin Sector would only hold up for so long before it was realized just how little was actually being committed to it.

He knew, as well, that rumors would circulate. Only this morning he had ordered the execution of the commander of a frigate. The fool had bedded a courtesan the night before and boasted to her of the blood he would draw when the attack on McAuliffe started. The courtesan worked for his own security team and had been placed into service to uncover loose tongues. Notice of the dishonor and execution had been posted to the fleet as a warning about such stupidity. This commander was now the fourth to die for such foolishness, and he wondered how many boasted and were never caught.

He felt a cool ripple of warning.

"We will track these humans down and tear the flesh from their bones. After the first battle I shall make sure their skulls are sent back to their commander," Gilkarg hissed. Like all Kilrathi, he had a deep loathing for spies and those who lurked and fought from the shadows. Even those who worked for his side were beings barely worthy of his notice and were treated accordingly.

The Emperor sighed and slowly stood up.

"I will not see you again, my son. Bring us victory. This shall be the greatest war yet fought by us. If victorious, your name will shine brighter then mine. But if you fail…"

The Crown Prince stood and bowed low as his father started for the door.

"I know your son, Prince Ratha, needs blooding. But do not place him at too great a risk. For after all, if something should happen to you, he will be needed and your youngest cub, Thrakhath, has yet to reach his majority…"

Without another word the Emperor disappeared through the door, leaving Gilkarg to wonder just what was meant by his fathers closing words.

Earth-Con Fed Fleet HQ Confederation date 2634.203

"Glad to see you, Joshua. Grab some coffee and take a seat."

Admiral Banbridge stepped around from behind his desk and refilled his own mug of coffee before settling down in a comfortable leather chair across from Joshua Speedwell, head of Fleet Intel.

"Anything new to report today?"

"Gamma Three in Facin fell this morning."

"And?"

"Not much of a fight. One frigate moderately damaged, six fighters and bombers lost. About one hundred marines killed or wounded. We got a destroyer and two transports. As usual, no prisoners, and the base was destroyed by autodestruct. That's where we lost most of our marines, the whole place was mined."

"When are they going to turn and fight?" Banbridge asked.

Speedwell shook his head. "Goes entirely against the grain of what little we know. Maybe it's because they don't define Facin as home territory. Maybe some of the stuff about internal rivalries within the Empire are true and they're leaving the clan that owns Facin to hold the bag."

"And your gut feeling?"

"We're getting sucked in."

Banbridge took another sip of his coffee. The meeting with the president and the Senate Committee on the Conduct of the War had been frustrating. They only heard what they wanted, and to them it was all good news. Nearly bloodless victories, the Kilrathi proving to be a paper dragon, and no need to mobilize the fleet and the reserves before the holidays and, more importantly, just before an election.

"Nothing to sink our teeth into," Joshua replied. "You saw my report on what happened to the Beta team?"

Skip nodded and sighed. Of course their deaths would be listed as a training accident, bodies unrecoverable. They'd been nailed trying to slip into Kilrathi space near the Ingraya system in order to set up a listening post.

"That's the third team in as many months," Joshua said bitterly, looking into his mug of coffee. "One of them is Akiko Kurosawas daughter, captain of Gibraltar. We've lost thirty good men and women for nothing."

"Why? Why are we getting hammered on covert intel?"

"Like I said in my report several months ago, the Cats have sealed the border up as tight as a drum. They used to turn a bit of a blind eye to illegal trade. Hell, it profited both sides, and it gave them a chance to slip their intel people across as well. What I shudder to think about is just how many listening posts they've most likely got stashed inside our territory. We just nailed another one yesterday, near the Nanking Sector."

"Any prisoners?"

Joshua shook his head. "No, the usual. One of my counter intel teams acquired its burst signal, traced it in, and as they closed the Cats self-destructed."

"We've been fighting an unknown war for weeks now," Skip said quietly, while getting out of his chair to get something a little stronger to put in his coffee. He looked over at Joshua, who shook his head at the offer of some Scotch.

"Are you going to break this to the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees?"

Skip shook his head. "I've told the president as required by law and that's it."

"And his response?"

Skip snorted disdainfully. "He's a politician facing re-election. The Peace and Prosperity Coalition is closing in on winning a majority. If they do, he's out and More takes over. If he goes public with what you and I suspect, the other side will accuse us of saber rattling to panic the voters because we're afraid of more appropriations cuts. More's got us over a barrel. And damn it, there's no good clear evidence. Just what the hell are we supposed to do, stand up and announce we've lost close to a hundred marines and special ops personnel in operations that we were running before war was officially declared? Damn, I'm surprised the Cats haven't gone public with our attempts, that'd really put you and me in the wringer."

"That's something right there," Joshua replied, "the fact that they haven't gone public. It means they want to keep this whole shadow war a secret as well. Look at it the other way. If we were innocent and kept nailing infiltration teams, don't you think we'd be screaming our heads off? So what do we do, Skip?"

"You keep on it. I want three more teams sent out immediately and a step-up in searching for their recon units."

"I can tell you right now it'll mean more good kids getting killed. Trying to slip over is nothing short of a suicide order."

Skip nodded sadly. "It's what they signed on for," he finally said, as if trying to convince himself. "We're just going to have to play our cards very closely for right now. I can't give an increased readiness alert, that'd set the damn press off into a real howl. But I have passed the word privately to some key people to start juggling the books a bit, horde some of the training ammunition, speed up overhauls, cut back on leaves. What about more listening posts?"

"Got six more going on-line, but remember we're talking a cool hundred million apiece for all that listening gear."