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The Alexanderov Federation
Book 1 The Grendarl War

Part Eighteen - The Battle for Rrk'g'kreg III (VI)

On the bridge of the Sharktooth II, the only sounds were the bleeps and bloops of automated machinery and computers. Nobody even breathed for fully ten seconds. They simply forgot -- they were too shocked. No admiral in the history of the Grendarl conflict had ever committed suicide in battle, and surely not while they were winning! Finally a few gasped for air, remembering to breathe before they passed out, and that snapped the rest out of it.

"Goodman to all task forces," he drawled out slowly, needing a few seconds to collect his thoughts. "It appears that Admiral Stockert has committed suicide. Despite my having the least time in rank among the Commodores, his last order was for me to assume command. I now do so. Prepare to engage the enemy for the last time." Gaining confidence now, his speech quickened. The shock was still there, the sadness at losing a friend and mentor, but he would deal with that later. It was safely compartmentalized away, to be brought out when he had nothing else to deal with, to be taken care of then. But for now he had a job to do. "55 and 75, your targets are the planetary missile bases, fire as soon as you are all ready. 57.1 and 77.1, fire your last round as soon as you can, targeted on the orbitals primarily. All fighter groups, follow five seconds behind and clean up anything that survives in orbit. 51 and 71, move in after the fighters and assist with clean up. 57.1 and 77.1, follow but assume defensive roles only."

A few acknowledgments fluttered in, but most simply obeyed, to numb with shock to do anything but accomplish their jobs by sheer rote. Well, the Alexanderov Federation trained its navy personnel to be able to do their jobs in their sleep, just in case. So that should be good enough.

A minute later, 57.1 and 77.1 opened up with their last salvo of missiles. Again, the Grendarl never saw them coming.

****

As the first missiles of the last wave began impacting on the orbital from which he commanded the fight, P'daR'T'S had only time to think quickly Even five minutes was too long. By the time they get that Sil-... His thought would never be completed, as his command center breached to space and he was killed instantly.

****

A few seconds later, 55 and 75 fired their burst of missiles. These missiles, unlike the "invisible" smaller missiles used by the PD frigates, would have been vulnerable to the Grendarl PD platforms, for the few seconds they were detectable by their sensors at least. But with all the platforms out of the way now, the missiles continued to the planet surface and almost all of them hit their targets with perfect precision. A few were intercepted by the few surviving carrier frigates in orbit, but not nearly enough to do any good. Worse yet for the Grendarl, the missile bases had been ready to fire again, just lacking in targets. The secondary explosions from their missiles caused significant collateral damage. Millions of those in line to obtain hand weaponry were crushed by falling buildings. Millions more died when the factories they were working in blew up from the EMP surges.

And a satellite launcher, which the crew working on it had just gotten the last of the Silicoid sensor platforms packaged into the nose and ready for launch, was knocked over onto a nearby fueling station by the shock wave. The explosion from that one slagged the sensor platform into component metals and created a fireball hot enough to kill people a 100 yards away.

Most of the forces in the Government DEA were unaffected, but elsewhere along the planet, over two billion died from the Grendarl misplacement of their missile bases.

H'R'l'Str'ZnaDk'S To M'RelDan looked out from his palace window on the destruction and was grieved. His people were dying out there, by the millions, perhaps billions, he didn't know. He only knew that if he did not do something soon, billions more would die to no avail. Now he finally understood the human phrase, "War is Hell." Before, he'd merely thought them cowards, afraid to fight. Now he understood that it was not the fighting that they hated, but the unnecessary deaths, the billions who died for no reason other than they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Signal our surrender."

Y'th'S'kaz bowed quickly. "Then we have lost? Can our ground forces not repel their pathetic marine units?"

"No matter how many of their marine units we kill, we cannot rebuild enough of an infrastructure to be able to build sufficient planetary defenses to destroy that armada. We can perhaps drive off their marines for several years, maybe decades, but not if they bring the Rhea. And we cannot stop them from bombing us to extinction. Our people will eventually all be killed. Signal our surrender. Now."

"But sire! If you do that, you know they will execute you!"

To M'RelDan roared at his aide. "What is my life against the lives of my people! If I die, I die with honor, for I sacrifice myself to save my subjects. Signal the surrender now or I will disembowel you and do it myself!"

Y'th'S'kaz bowed again, and moved to comply.

****

"Signal from the planet, Commodore." Lewis reported. "They offer their unconditional surrender."

"Accept it. There is no need to cause more death today if we don't have too. Goodman to all ships. We have won. The Grendarl surrender."

It took a few seconds for the news to percolate to all the crews of all the vessels. But a few seconds later, despite the fact the com channels were all off, Goodman could have sworn he heard the cheering of Humans, Raas, Psilon, Trillarians and Nommo, all carrying across the void of space, they cheered so loud.


To M'RelDan literally means "the highest", and in context means the Emperor.

 


 

 
 


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