Commander Klitch and his quargs, I think, were pleased with the spectacle, and in some ways I could understand it, but I myself took no pleasure in contemplating this local Armageddon. Samples of ancient toads weaponry should have been captured intact and not wiped into powder and vaporized in streams of raging plasma. And, most importantly, we had the opportunity to do it. The toads would surely give up, where would they go? But who knew
We spent two more days capturing the autonomous space objects. Taking advantage of the total absence of enemy warships in the system, I ordered our own transport ring to be deployed not far from the destroyed toads portal and contacted Admiral Nelson.
Well, Igor Yakovlevich, congratulations on your first success as commander of the Allied fleet, Nelson smiled having listened to my report, Do you need any assistance?
We have a mountain of trophies here, Mr Minister, I smiled back at Nelson, There are a lot of shipyards and factories abandoned by the toads in the system. They prepared some of them to be blown up and even managed to destroy some of them, but weve managed to capture a lot of them almost intact. Right now our boarding robots are taking control of the most interesting autonomous space objects, but we clearly dont have enough forces for that as thats not why we flew here after all. Could you send General of the Army Barrington to help me? I think the operation has now entered the stage where his talents are indispensable. I wouldnt stay here too long. Who knows what the toads are capable of? They now sit quietly on their planets under a dense network of orbital fortresses, but this isnt their only star system, they can counterstrike, and I only have 14 Black Dragons and nearly empty drone torpedo carriers.
General Barrington had not arrived alone. Following the cruiser that had brought the rear chief to us, there was an endless stream of huge evacuation transports, the same ones built for transporting prisoners from the Kappa Ceti system. It seemed that our genius of logistics was seriously determined to take out of the enemy star system everything his grasping hands could reach.
Commander, Sir, Barrington, after reviewing the list of the captured objects, addressed to me with a slight smile, Im afraid your squadron will have to stay here for at least six days. It would be just criminal to leave such trophies here or to destroy them.
I started thinking. Such a delay was not part of my plan. It seems that a large fleet of toads could not appear in the system. If they had it, they would have brought it here through the portal a long time ago and not let us take over their space with impunity. But the risk was still quite high. We had already encountered one surprise that had cost us quite a bit. Who knows how many more of these trump cards the enemy has up his sleeve? But Barrington was also understandable. The Federation was desperate for new technologies, and here they were practically lying around to pick up.
All right, General of the Army, Sir, you will have six days, but I need your men to deploy three more transport rings in different parts of the system. In the event of a sudden change in the situation, this will allow transports to quickly evacuate through the nearest portal. I will send you the coordinates of the gate installation points.
Ill give the order, Barrington nodded and plunged into the process of organizing a professional looting of the enemy industrial infrastructure.
Chapter 3
Why are we still working on this old stuff, Fléa? Silk asked in a tired voice, turning away from the programmer of the medical capsule and sinking heavily into a chair, As far as I remember, we were promised new equipment a week ago. I mean, these promises are two weeks old, and they were supposed to arrive here a week ago! I spend three times as much time using this junk as I could on one patient. What do they think theyre doing there in the capital?!
Youre completely out of touch, doctor," the older nurse shook her head, When was the last time you watched the network news?
What news? Dont you see whats going on? Rescue workers are constantly opening up new blocked entrances to the underground levels of cities, and you know what follows.
Fléa knew this. Every time the heavy repair robots managed to reach another blocked off neighborhood, the flood of wounded was literally overwhelming the hastily deployed Civil Defense Department hospitals. It was just a miracle that engineer Colweg, who came out of nowhere, turned out to be both a qualified doctor and a specialist in medical equipment. Only through his efforts was it possible to bring the old med pods and diagnostic equipment out of mothballs so quickly that the hospital was able to receive almost twice as many wounded. But now Colweg was so busy with work that he fell asleep on the job, so it was no wonder he couldnt think about anything else.
In the last ten days, the toads have attacked five more of our systems, Fléa answered softly, All in all, almost 30 planets are now under simultaneous attack. Many of them have surface battles going on. The news reports say that the fleet and army have mobilized all their reserves and soon the situation will be back under control, but frankly, I find it hard to believe. The portal network is practically paralyzed. If theyve tried to send us new med pods and other equipment, the transports must have gotten hopelessly stuck somewhere. And most likely, all of it has already been dispersed to other places for the needs of the army. Theres so much carnage over there now that no one will remember our Kappa Gyan anytime soon.
Okay, Fléa, I got it. Im just grouchy, dont mind me. Whos next?
The nurse didnt have time to answer. A junior technician peeked into the cubicle, saw Silk and waved to someone in the hospital corridor, Engineer Colweg is here, Colonel! Come in.
Service Engineer Colweg? The question was posed by an energetic military man in a medical colonels uniform, who entered the room after the technician.
Im listening to you, Silk said, and he had a bad feeling in his heart.
Colonel Egen," the unexpected visitor introduced himself, Mr. Engineer, do you have a few minutes to spare? At that, Egen glanced expressively at Fléa.
I think Ill make you some tea and cookies, Doctor, the nurse smiled and left the room, beckoning the technician to follow her and shutting the door tightly.
Hello, Dr. Silk. General Las, Ministry of Defense Security Service.
So you found me after all, Silk grinned mirthlessly, Why am I surprised? Why the Ministry of Defense Security Service, General? I thought people from the Imperial Security were coming for me. And the General Isnt that a bit much?
Youve been rather imprudent, Doctor, Las replied, glancing around the cubicle filled with equipment, It wasnt that hard to figure you out.
I couldnt have it any other way, Silk answered grimly, You dont want to answer any questions, do you? Shall I pack?
Ill answer, but not here. I dont think my colleagues in the Imperial Security Service are any stupider than I am. Staying in the hospital is extremely dangerous for you. Theres a fly-car waiting for me at the special-vehicle yard. It would be better if we left here immediately and under some plausible pretext.
Why should I believe you? asked Silk, looking into the Generals eyes.
Because if I just turn around and leave now, Las squinted, then in a few hours, 24 hours at the most, there will be people from the Security Service of the Empire here. And they will talk to you in a completely different way. General Clay is now sitting in their detention center, and theyre dreaming to get another member of the operation to send Brigadier General Deans consciousness to another galaxy. And I want to get to the bottom of whats going on, and to do that I need an opportunity to meet or at least to talk to Admiral Lavroff via hypercomms.
What do you suggest? asked the Doctor in a slightly calmer tone.
First of all, to get out of here as soon as possible and as far away as possible. Ill cover you as much as I can, but Im not ready to come into direct conflict with the Imperial Security Service, you should know that. So are you coming, Doctor?
Lass fly-car lifted off into the pale sky of Giyan-3. Strictly speaking, the hospital should have been thoroughly mopped up, but Dr. Silk would definitely refuse any cooperation after that, and Las was not ready for such harsh actions. He must have gone soft in his generals job. In the end, Las could only hope that his field agent, who had recently taken a job at the hospital as a junior technician, could intelligently explain the disappearance of service engineer Colweg and, at least for a while, slow down or misdirect the Imperial Security Service.
The flight was about 20 minutes long. The medium recon ship that took Las to the planet was waiting for his return at the local Ministry of Defense Security base. But even before the Generals fly-car descended onto the runway, Lass communicator beeped an emergency call.
General, Sir," Las heard the voice of the base commander, "Im afraid your ships takeoff will have to be postponed indefinitely. Fixed scanners have just detected a strike fleet of the toads one jump away from Kappa Giyan.
On the contrary, I need to take off immediately. Maybe we can still make it to the third portal in time.
There is no third portal anymore. The enemy appeared from that side, and, I suspect, not by accident. The only thing left is the hypergate in the system itself, but it would be completely impossible to get through there now, unless youre going to show your emergency powers.
Las wasnt going to show anything to anyone. He had already exposed himself while jumping into the system in the hold of an evacuation transport, and trying to exercise his emergency powers now would inevitably attract the attention of the Imperial Security Service. And its not a fact that it would have worked. The fleet should have started moving warships into the system to repel the toads strike, and the commander of the defense forces of Kappa Giyan may well have refused to slow down the process for the needs of Las.
* * *
While General Barrington was in charge of the system, I had time to consider my next steps. The toads, hiding behind orbital fortresses on their three planets, have not yet taken any active action, and, apparently, could not do it. I didnt know what their top brass were counting on globally, but in this particular star system they had already lost anyway. Sooner or later, one way or another, the orbital fortresses would be knocked out, that was no doubt in my mind or, Im sure, in the minds of the «frogs» themselves. But they could stall long enough, and it made no sense to ask them to give up now. I, on the other hand, had no desire to waste any more time.
If you dont count all the sparsely populated small planets, the toads had 18 star systems. The «frogs» didnt seem to be able to build a powerful fleet quickly, and the ships they were capable of building, lets face it, were not very impressive. Our Black Dragons, especially with the support of the Invisibles with the new torpedoes, could well eat them for breakfast. But what to do with these ancient weapons of theirs, I did not yet understand. I firmly knew only one thing: I want to get an undamaged sample of this gun, lets call it that for now, for simplicity. But so far its only been my wishful thinking, and the fact that the toads weapons prevented us from getting close to the planet to attack the orbital fortresses without great losses, was a fact that had to be dealt with.
I went over the problem in my head this way and that way, but the solution never came. Of course, it was possible to use the tactics we used during the attack on the toads portal. Yes, the crews of the ships do not die, but the ships themselves die in packs, which, to put it mildly, is not very good, you cant get enough of them. On the other hand, only a massive torpedo salvo could pierce a hole in such a dense network of fortresses, which means that it would still be necessary to deliver torpedoes to the launch line. Therefore, it will be necessary to expose ourselves to the fire of the ancient weapons of toads, and none of our ships can withstand at least one volley of these weapons. And since we cant defend against a strike, we have to put ships that we dont feel sorry for under it. And what ship is not a pity to lose? What properties should it have? Correct! It must be extremely simple and cheap to produce and, necessarily, not require a crew. And who here is the best expert on huge fleets of cheap ships? I know this man!
I cant say that General of the Army Barrington was pleased that I distracted him from expropriating another autonomous space plant in our favor, but he listened to me carefully.
Igor, your idea isnt bad, but it needs some work, he said after pondering my words for a while, The construction of cheap ships I can really arrange. A barrel without cannons, armor, and protective fields, with primitive intra-system engines incapable of a normal hyperjump, cant be worth much. Weve been over this with the evacuation transports. But you want to fill this barrel with torpedoes with plasma warheads. And how much does one such torpedo cost, do you remember?
I remembered. And under Barringtons sad stare, my idea was beginning to seem less and less viable. Although
Mr. Barrington, the barrel doesnt have to be big. The important thing is to have lots of them. Then the toads super-powered weapons will hit mosquitoes. Their rate of fire is extremely low, and the deaths of a few dozen small plasma torpedo carriers will not change anything in the overall situation.
Small ships will cost more, said Barrington thoughtfully, figuring something out in his mind, Engines, computer, control and navigation systems will still be needed on each carrier. But I like the idea. How quickly do you need such ships? However, what am I asking Fleet Admiral Lavroff? As always, already yesterday, this young man simply does not know any other terms.
You know me pretty well, I grinned back.
I think Ill talk to the lizards. No one in this world can build ships faster than they can. For a long time I wanted to take a look at their technologies for use in my household, but never got around to it, and now theres a nice opportunity
Why put it off? Lets contact Admiral Lit-ta now. I think this issue is within her competence. And as for the torpedoes, of which we will need a great many, I will talk to the Headman of the quargs. These guys would strain every nerve to play a dirty trick on the toads.
Igor, said the General, lets assume for a second that everything worked out and we managed to punch a hole in the toads orbital shield. And then what? We have no idea what awaits us on the surface. Given the level of electronic warfare that the toads have at their disposal, no unmanned robots controlled from orbit can operate on the surface. And knowing you, Im sure you wont throw your landing party into the unknown
It depends on what kind of landing party, Mr. Barrington, I smiled at the corner of my lips, But youre right, thats something to think about, too. It looks like were going to need even more small carrier ships than I imagined.
* * *
We never left the toads star system, not after six days or a month. When it became clear that help from the outside was not rushing to the blocked planets, I made the decision not to leave, but instead to build up forces in the system for the coming assault.