Muhaha, time to face the Tauren Juggernaut!
That's right, it is out. :)
The Tauren War grows in intensity as the Taurens press the advantage to dig deeper into Federation territory. Vice Admiral Shelby Logan pushes her people to prepare for the coming… Juggernaut.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QNVF36P
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w?ean=2940160738444
Oops, forgot to post this yesterday. My bad.
So, sitrep: I am half way through Shelby 6. I just sent the first half off to Paul and Wayne this morning. If any other Betas want in, please email me.
In other news, both my Mom and Gram have Covid. I'm a bit worried about Gram, she's 90. But she did get the booster and mom said that they are both doing better. Gram is probably not happy at missing out on Bingo and her card games! lol
I am trying to get certain other family members to get vaccinated. No progress on that front. Sigh.
On to the snippet, and then lunch! I'm hungry!
TauG9-77
General Sedu stared bleakly at the reports scattered on his desk. He was still dealing with the aftermath of the nuclear strike on the spaceport. To say that things were a mess was putting it mildly.
The Marines and their partisans had opened up a full-court press on every base he had during or shortly after the nuke went off. Without air support to move personnel around and without gunships and drones to fly cover, some of his bases had been lost.
The navy had saved his butt more than once. He knew that and couldn't help but resent it a little even though he knew such feelings were stupid and he should be grateful. It just burned to have his chestnuts pulled out of the fire over and over again.
He had been forced to fall back to three of the cities and set up a tight perimeter there. Each of them had a spaceport though he was limited on using aircraft. He had a few drones and aircraft left, those that had been out on missions at the time the nuke went off. But he'd lost his entire air mechanic team and supports. The few Taurens that had been pressed in to help support the remaining aircraft complained constantly about the dwindling amount of parts and supplies left. Even specialized tools were an issue.
He was looking at a near total loss of his air power if he didn't allow them to ground the remaining aircraft for a fleet overhaul. His people had been “requisitioning” civilian craft but there were few left.
He closed his eyes in pain. And it didn't help that once the enemy knew what he was doing they'd booby trapped three of the craft. He'd lost a mechanic and air crew on one of those bombings.
The civilians on the planet didn't have many aircraft left at this point. They'd only just started to get aircraft from the Federation when he had arrived.
He knew his career was most likely toast. He hated it, but he was more or less resigned to it at this point. Only a stubborn refusal to give up kept him going at this point.
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Colonel Los winced when pain made his left arm go numb. He flexed his hand, trying to get feeling back into it. There wasn't much there. His right arm was cradled against his abdomen, still in a cast.
He had survived the second air crash, but he had been critically injured. He had been placed into stasis for the return journey to home for surgeries and a long recovery. But the needs of the service had forced him and other injured out of their much-needed rest.
He had endured rounds of surgery and physical therapy to get to this point. He still had headaches and felt like an invalid. His legs were better; he could almost support his own weight on them without the crutches. He still needed the braces and exoframe though.
The therapist quietly helped him move his arm and massaged the muscles in his bicep and triceps. She put an ice pack on his shoulder, strapped it there and then made a note on his chart.
He grunted and turned away and back to the paperwork on the tablet in front of him. His left eye was closed. The bones around it had been broken, and a shard had blinded him there. They'd managed to rebuild it, but if he kept it open for long periods of time, he got shards of pain, especially if he was in bright sunlight.
He had taken on paperwork and reading post battle reports, intelligence, anything to try to turn the tide. He felt intensely bitter over everything he read though and helpless. Like the general though, he refused to quit or give in. There had to be a way to break the bastards. They just hadn't found it yet.
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Mayweather Station
Admiral Brewster took the opportunity to tour Mayweather station. He had been surprised by the name change when he'd heard it, but he quite frankly approved of it. It was far better than the pirate's Harlot's Dream.
The base was massive; it was a hodgepodge of hollowed out asteroids, ships, and station components. He needed a map and guide to make sense of it all. A lieutenant had been assigned to him as a guide. "We're still getting into every nook and cranny, Herd Leader. We're learning a little bit each day," the lieutenant said.
The admiral noted a party examining some equipment and nodded.
"When they pulled out, they destroyed just about everything they could except life support and the hull. Fixtures too I suppose," the lieutenant stated, indicating a seat in an open-air galley. "All of their replicators are flatlined or ripped out."
"Ah. Pity about that," the admiral murmured.
As he inspected the station, he could see how the Federation had been remaking it. The original creation had been a bastard pirate hodgepodge of asteroids, truss segments, and captured material like space station and ship components.
As they made their way through the station, he noted where the enemy had destroyed this or that. It looked like new equipment too. The expense probably sucked.
"How long did they have control of this place?" he asked as they made the rounds in a fusion reactor room. One reactor had been brought online at minimum power. There was fuel in the tanks. Apparently, the enemy had topped off before departing but had left the fuel.
"Over a standard year," the lieutenant replied as he ducked under a set of cables dangling from the bulkhead above. The admiral did so as well.
"That long." He looked at a command station for the reactor. It was new, not jury-rigged. It had scorch marks of course, but it didn't look old. In order to do that, they had to have rewired it. But it wasn't a simple job; they might have even had to run all new wiring. In a base this size, it would be a titanic undertaking.
"Yes, Herd Leader."
"And they did all this? To what amounts to a secondary base?" It wasn't just the complexity; it was the fact that they'd been methodical about it. They could have settled for the basics and made do, but they hadn't.
"Well, they might have prioritized it higher before the war when the dialog began to breakdown," the lieutenant with him suggested.
"True. Do we even know what happened to that diplomatic ship?"
The lieutenant shook his head. "No. The assumption is it was stopped and held."
"Ah." The admiral grimaced. "It'd be nice to find out if it got caught or destroyed."
"Really? Why, Herd Leader? Why would that matter?"
Admiral Brewster cocked his head and then shrugged. "I suppose it might not in the grand scheme of things, but then again, knowing if they caught them might mean they learned something of our tech base early on. Knowing that might tell us what and give us a meterstick for them."
The lieutenant nodded slowly.
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Admiral Broken Tooth had been reading another report about a ghost ship. He put it down and then checked the search of the star system.
He hadn't put many ships to that mission since he'd needed his good ships to guard the others as they underwent field repairs. As a few of those ships came back online, he'd authorized a couple of small ships to try to find the enemy's hidden ansible array.
They had to have one; ONI was certain of that. He was too, though he wasn't certain if they'd kept it online or not. Obviously, the Feds had taken great pains to hide the blasted thing. His people had been looking for months without finding it.
"Sir, arrival at the 80 jump point!" an ensign reported. He blinked and then checked the schedule. That had to be the arrival of the fleet train and carrier force. He felt instant relief. "About time!"
Admiral Broken Tooth knew that he was in trouble politically. He had won the battle, but due to his losses, he was in danger of being recalled and thus losing the war from a personal perspective.
Thus, he wanted to seize on carrier force. His staff was already working on rebuilding his squadrons with undamaged ships or ships that had made good on repairs. He needed to use that and seize the initiative to throw the enemy further back. He had to go into the next system to force the enemy out quickly before they dug in. But after the drubbing he had received, he had to do so cautiously. He needed to conserve his units and fight smart until replacement units reached him.
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Sitrep: So, Rea shot me the manuscript back. I added the final edits and then shot it off to Goodlifeguide. We should be seeing it in the next 10 days. :)
I'm up to my knees in Shelby 6. Slowly pieces are falling into place as I get back into my groove. :)
On to the snippet!
Minox IV
The Confederation government received leaks of the losses at 77 and elsewhere. The military had to inform families of the dead and that kicked off more interest which started a series of committee hearings.
Committee hearings were a public or private forum to air out grievances and for one party or the other to score political points. They were, therefore, usually contentious and with a war on more so. There had been some talk of locking them down out of patriotism, but the senate was divided enough for that attempt to fail.
The senate was the primary place for such hearings, though they could be held in the lower house as well. With the war on and rumors swirling, everyone wanted to know the truth, and the hearings were a potential source, though everyone knew that every participant would be putting their own particular spin on things.
Admiral White Skin was called in first. He was frank; he admitted that the navy had been foolish to stop use of carriers and fighters. "We the navy failed to properly assess and appreciate the threat level of such small craft going back centuries."
Some of the War Party knew about the losses to date and were not happy. They were careful not to bite the hand that fed them though. He was careful to hide the losses. Since some of the ships had crew from many different worlds in the Confederation, the losses were spread out. He could also delay reporting them for some time. There might of course be unreported survivors, and no one wanted to expose the family of a sailor to the traumatic experience of telling them that they lost a loved one and then find that the bull was alive much later.
"So, what are you doing to correct it?"
"We already have carriers on the way. And we are working to produce more. Our people are working on new designs for both small craft and carriers and relearning how to support them. I admit, it is a poor time to do so, but we are Taurens, we will get it done."
Since the losses of ships were still highly classified and not much information had come in about the battles as of yet, the hearing ended up being a soft one for the navy.
However, the liberals had managed to make more inroads in the army losses and that was coming up next.
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General Dun had been in the hot seat and grilled often enough to know how the process worked. He listened to the briefing as the other department heads talked about what to expect. "They are out for blood," Admiral White Skin stated.
"And they didn't get it from you so I'm next."
"Correct."
"Great."
"Just keep your cool."
"Right."
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It was General Dun's turn to be called out by committee on the losses suffered to date the following morning. Initially he waffled and did the dance, swearing in, pleasantries, and such. He handled the soft questions from the War Party. They tried to set the tone as a harmonious and patriotic one, but it fell flat.
The general could tell that the War Party wanted answers too and were not above letting the liberals go on the attack to answer their own curiosity. He just hoped he didn't suffer too much from the experience.
Deployment numbers were asked about, the answers were classified, and he said so. Also, where those units were deployed to were classified. But the liberals knew about one place since the government had announced it and used that as an example.
"According to our records, General Sedu had one division going in to 77. That is one of the first Federation star systems to be invaded. Excuse me," he made an elaborate motion to the chairman. "Correction, liberated from their own government and people." The chairman grimaced at the sarcasm. The liberal senator turned to the general. "Is this correct, General?" Senator Mel an up-and-coming bull of the Liberal Party asked when his five minutes to ask questions came up.
"That is not quite accurate. General Sedu placed some troops as occupation forces in the star systems leading up to that system," the general explained, hoping that it would be seen as one reason for the losses.
"So, you'd say he was shy a brigade?" the senator asked.
"Yes. Roughly that."
"All right, so he went in against an unprepared force though. A mostly civilian population."
"I wouldn't say that."
"Ah? Then what would you say?"
"He went up against more resistance than anticipated."
"Is that because the enemy has veteran units that fought pirates while our units are only trained to round up, torture, and kill unarmed civilians?"
There was a bit of chaos when that charge was leveled. The chairman had to pound the room to order and threaten to eject some of the members who vehemently objected.
"I second the objection! That charge is scurrilous and puts a slur on our military!" another senator, this one a War Party member, stated heatedly.
"Ah. Should I bring up video and witness testimony?" the liberal senator asked mildly.
The senator gaped and tried to recover.
"Objection overruled. We will not have this committee turned into a witch hunt. Focus on the matter at hand," the chairman said tiredly.
"Very well," the liberal senator said gravely with a nod. He turned to the general. "General?"
"I wouldn't characterize it like that."
"Are the people you target by our valiant defenders of our liberty and freedom rounded up?"
"Yes."
"Are they women and children of species other than Taurens?"
"To some degree."
"Are they unarmed?"
"Not completely."
That earned a snort from a few people. The liberal senator cocked his head. "Ah. So, they have equivalent weapons and training."
"No."
"No. I see. What do they have?"
"Civilian hunting rifles."
"And sticks and things? Knives?"
"Yes, more or less."
"Against modern weapons and technology," the senator said scathingly.
"Yes."
"Drone strikes?"
"Sometimes. Our people need the training."
"Against civilians."
"If they offer resistance, they are classed as combatants."
"A human woman with a chef knife is a combatant?"
"Yes."
"Against armor?"
"Yes."
"I see. We'll set that matter aside for the moment since my time is running short. Now, the Federation combatants. How many are there? A brigade?"
"We believe less than that." The question clearly made the general uncomfortable, something the senator noted and pounced on.
"I have the numbers from intelligence general. Do I need to drag it out of you?"
General Dun hid a grimace. His ears flicked once. He knew he was going to be in for it, but he might as well get out ahead of the storm. "A MASH unit and recruiters. Some spacebees and an army engineering platoon."
There was a rumble of murmuring over that admission. To admit that their forces were being shredded by what amounted to support units was appalling.
"These are support units? Not frontline units?" the senator asked.
"Yes."
"I see. So, let's say less than two hundred all told?"
"Yes."
"Without fixed defenses and on an unknown planet?"
"They have local help."
"But they haven't been there long?"
"Correct."
"Against a short division? Which controls the high ground as you like to say?"
"Yes." The general didn't look happy.
"And General Sedu suffered how many casualties?" the senator demanded.
General Dun ground his teeth. He wished the admission would come in a closed-door hearing but it was not to be.
"Half of his force to date have been killed or injured."
The room went into chaos again as people from all of the parties demanded answers.
When the room was gaveled to silence the senator shook his head. "Half. Against a lightly-armed, mostly secondary forces group. Support units with less than a full military kit. With some partisan support. That against numbers, equipment, surprise, the control of the skies, and orbit on our side. I have to wonder what is going to happen when our valiant protectors of the herd go up against a real threat?"
The room grew deathly quiet as that question sank in.
General Dun said nothing.
"That's okay, General; I think we know there are going to be a lot more letters to families soon," the senator said as his time mercifully ran out.
"I believe after that charged testimony we need a recess," the chairman said as he gaveled them into a one-hour recess before anyone could protest.
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About: Nightmarish creatures looking for a new nest stumble upon an unused path into the heart of a new unsuspecting sector… Prisoners b...
