Issue In Doubt

CHAPTER Thirteen

Fleet CAC, NAUS Durango, in Orbit Around Troy



With the operation on Mini Mouse underway, Rear Admiral Avery turned his attention back to Amphibious Ready Group 17. The attack was over, all the enemy missiles had been destroyed by the squadrons sent after them, or by fire from the warships—or they’d hit their targets. The wormhole had closed before more than two of the drones he’d sent made it through; all they’d tell Earth was that a missile attack on ARG17 was under way.

Too many alien missiles had made it through the defenses to their targets.

A debris cloud marked where the Amphibious Assault Ship Peleliu, ARG 17’s flagship, had been. Likewise the AAS Kandahar and Juno Beach. A single cloud marked the death site of the Landing Platform Shuttle Phillips Head and the Logistics Supply Ship Richmond. Another showed where the Amphibious Landing Ferry Yorktown had been destroyed. The Dry Cargo Ship Columbus was dead.

The Amphibious Assault Ships Grandar Bay, and Fallujah were wounded, as were the Landing Platform Shuttle Iwo Jima and the Amphibious Landing Dock Saratoga . The DCS Amundsen was wounded.

Three other ships of ARG17 were dead; only four of the nineteen had made it through without serious injury.

Task Force 8 had also suffered severely. Four of the five warships Avery had sent to meet and escort ARG17 to Troy from the wormhole were gone. The destroyers Lance Corporal Keith Lopez and Chief Gunners Mate Oscar Schmit Jr. were dead, and both of TF8’s cruisers, the Coral Sea and the Ramsey Strait. Only the fast attack carrier Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd survived, and she was severely damaged. Damaged or not, she was trying to recover those of her Meteors that had survived the fight with the alien missiles.

Avery spent a long time looking at the results of the enemy attack on the ARG. Fourteen of the nineteen starships in the ARG were troop transports. Six of the fourteen were dead, probably lost with all hands. Five of the others were damaged, with an as yet unknown number of casualties. Only three had come through without significant battle damage or casualties. Three of the five support ships were dead, and one other was wounded.

Perhaps the worst loss was that of the Peleliu with the ARG’s admiral, and the commanding general of VII Corps and his primary staff.

Finally Avery said in a formal voice, “Comm, get me commander, Marine Combat Force, Troy.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Davis said softly; he’d been following the aftermath of ARG17’s encounter with the missiles along with the admiral.

While waiting for the Marine commander, Avery called to his aide, Lieutenant Julius Townsend. “Kindly arrange for my transportation planetside, to Lieutenant General Bauer’s headquarters.” He hesitated, then added, “Tell Chief Jones I want to take the fast way down.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Townsend, understanding why his boss needed to meet with Bauer in person and as soon as possible, put a call in to Chief Boatswain’s Mate Andrew Jones, who ran the admiral’s ship-to-ship, orbit-to-ground shuttles, and told him to be ready to take off on either at a moment’s notice. “The Admiral wants to fly down fastest.”

“No problem, Lieutenant. My bird will be ready by the time the admiral gets here. Even if he starts right now.”

“Thanks, Chief.” To Avery: “Chief Jones says he’s ready, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. Townsend. Comm, belay that last. Inform Lieutenant General Bauer I am en route to his location and will provide him with an ETA shortly.”

Near the McKinzie Elevator Base, Outside Millerton, Marine Headquarters

“Admiral,” Lieutenant General Bauer said, rising and stepping from behind his small field desk. “Come in, please. Have a seat.” He gestured at two camp chairs sitting at a small folding table. A coffee set-up was already on the table.

“Thank you, sir,” Avery replied. He nervously stepped to one of the camp chairs but didn’t sit; Bauer out-ranked him, and protocol said the senior man sits first. That’s what he told himself.

“Don’t stand on ceremony, Jim,” Bauer said, smiling. “We’re in the field, not the Flag Club. When a man wearing more stars than you tells you to have a seat, you sit your ass down.”

“Whatever you say, Harry.” Avery plopped into the chair facing into the room. He fidgeted.

“Rough ride down?” Bauer asked as he sat in the other camp chair.

Avery nodded. “‘Fast ride on a rocky road,’ as you Marines call that plunge.” He grimaced, than picked up his coffee mug and took a sip. “I thought I should get down here ASAP.” He shook his head. “The way my arthritic joints feel, maybe I should have ridden the elevator instead of taking the shuttle all the way.”

Bauer snorted. “Arthritic my ass. There’s a lot of negative things that a Marine can say about the Navy—some of them are even true—but complaints about medical care aren’t among them. If you have arthritis, it’s because you want it.”

Avery chuckled. “Yeah. Maybe it’s just age getting to me.” He looked into a corner of Bauer’s Spartan office. “Or maybe it’s thinking about our losses.”

Bauer sucked in a deep breath. “Tell me all about it. Starting with why you thought it important to pay me a personal visit rather than use your comms when you should be in your CAC directing rescue and recover operations on ARG 17.”

Avery flinched at the mild criticism. “It’s serious, Harry. Damn serious. I don’t want any bad guys who might be listening in to hear me say just how bad things suddenly got.”

“I can buy that.” Bauer glanced at a random part of the ceiling. “That was quite a light show we were treated to shortly before you announced your impending visit. What the hell happened up there?”

Avery looked at Bauer, and his expression was bleak. “I lost a third of my fighting power. Ships and men. Gone. Dead.” He shuddered. “But that’s not the worst of it. VII Corps basically no longer exists. ARG 17 got slaughtered, despite the best efforts of my people. We just weren’t prepared for an attack like that.” He shook his head, and shuddered again. “Two of VII Corps’ divisions are gone completely—unless some of the troops managed to get into stasis. If any did, it wasn’t many; there weren’t enough stasis stations on the ships to handle that many people. One of the other two divisions was hurt so badly I don’t think it can function as a division again until it’s withdrawn and reconstituted.” He stopped talking and looked into a place that only he could see.

“I must be relieved of command, I don’t deserve command,” Avery said so softly the Marine barely heard him, then was silent again.

After a moment of waiting for him to say more, Bauer asked, “What about the fourth division? What about General Lyman and his staff?”

Avery shook himself, then spoke more firmly and briskly than he had before. “I believe the 25th Infantry Division lost half a brigade but is otherwise intact.” He paused again, swallowed, and continued in a firm voice.” General Lyman and his staff, unfortunately, were on the Peleliu when she was killed. I don’t believe there were any survivors.”

Bauer stared at Avery. What he had just described had to be the worst military disaster in centuries.

He didn’t say that, though. Instead he asked, “Have you sent word back to Earth yet?”

Avery shook his head. “I wanted to make sure you assumed command before I send word.”

“Jim, if what you said about Lyman being killed is accurate, I’m now the senior officer on or near Troy. Of course I’m in command.” Bauer switched to another topic.

“I lost some Marines in the rescue mission to Mini Mouse. What is the Navy’s assessment of the lunar operations?”

Now on firmer ground, not thinking directly about his lost ships and sailors, Avery calmed down. “I’m sorry about your Marines, but the mission was a success on multiple levels. First, they brought back all of my downed fliers. Second, the enemy didn’t use any defensive fire. Did you know I had drones out there to mimic attacking spacecraft, to attract fire? Well, I did, and the enemy didn’t fire on them. The drones over-flew all four sites to assess damage. It didn’t look like anything could have survived in the bombed areas.”

“Then where did those ground counter-attacks come from?”

Avery shook his head apologetically. “The drones didn’t see anything that might have been their bases.” He shrugged. “But they weren’t looking for them, either.”

“Those bases, if they exist, need to be found and neutralized,” Bauer said firmly.

“Agreed.” Avery bobbed his head, and mentally kicked himself for not ordering a search for ground bases on Mini Mouse before he headed planetside. “I’ll order a search as soon as we are through here.”

“What is your assessment of the survivability of the people on the starships that were killed?”

“I’m sure some are still alive, in compartments that weren’t breached. More than that I can’t say at this time. Crews from the uninjured ships are conducting searches. I won’t know until I get their reports. The surviving Meteors off the Kidd are searching the damaged and killed Meteors for surviving pilots.” His shoulders jerked in a half-shrug. “The Meteors’ cockpits are survival capsules. If they didn’t get holed, the pilots can last up to twelve hours before their life support starts to fail.” He looked again into a dark corner of his mind and murmured, “Some of them might still make it back alive.”

“Admiral Avery!” Bauer said sharply. “Time enough for that later. Right now we need to rescue everybody who can be rescued and recover those who can’t. We need to fully assess the damage to our forces, and prepare to fend off the next alien attack. There will be another attack.”

Avery flinched as though slapped, but pulled himself out of the depression he’d been sinking into. “You’re right, General. You’re in command, what are your orders?”

“All you have left for planet defense is your flagship, the big carrier, and three frigates. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“What about the two destroyers you had pursuing the missiles?”

“They are still en route to what remains of ARG 17.”

“Good. They can aid in the search and recovery.”

“Yes they can.”

“Next, you have inter-stel comms, I don’t. So I need for you to send a preliminary report to the Joint Chiefs.”

“I will pass my message by you before transmission.”

Bauer waved that away. “I trust your judgment, and you’re better able than I am to tell the Chiefs the status of the Navy forces here, and request what you need. Tell them to start feeding Second Army here.”

Avery nodded his acceptance of Bauer’s instruction.

“And I want you to find the aliens’ ground bases on Mini Mouse. Also, commence satellite reconnaissance of Dumbo. If the aliens had bases on the smaller moon, they probably have installations of some sort on the larger one as well.”

“I’ll give the orders as soon as I leave your command post.”

“Excellent!” Bauer exclaimed, rising to his feet. “Can you think of anything else that needs to be done at this time?”

“No, sir. I think we covered everything.”

“Good. Keep me up to date on what’s happening with the search and recovery operations, and what you’re finding on the moons.”

“Aye aye, General.”

Bauer held out his hand, and was relieved at the firmness of Avery’s grip. If Avery’s grip had been weak, Bauer would have relieved him of command and passed it to the senior surviving captain in either fleet.

Now, to prepare his Marines for the next ground attack by the aliens. One thing that wasn’t mentioned in his meeting with Avery, but that Bauer knew full well: the engagement on Mini Mouse demonstrated that, in close combat, his Marines were the superior fighters, and they could beat greater numbers.

Remembering the vids he’d seen of the original attack on Troy, and the little from Force Recon, Bauer knew it would be a very tough fight when it came. It would be a fight that might well be decided by numbers.

Unknown was how many soldiers of VII Corps survived the attack on ARG 17, and the state of their morale. High morale and belief in yourself and your comrades was of incalculable value in battle. They were what doctrine and field manuals called “force magnifiers,” the intangibles that increased a military unit’s ability to fight and win without increasing its size or weapons.

“Sir.” A firm knock came on the frame of Bauer’s office door. He looked toward it and saw Lieutenant Upshur.

“Come.”

Upshur stepped inside the room. “Sir, satellite observation reports a wormhole opening twenty degrees above ecleptic, one point starboard of galactic east. Half a light minute distance.”

Galactic east was almost opposite the direction to Earth, and no other human colonized worlds were in that direction.

Damn Navy. Why do they have to use “points” to give direction? Bauer thought but didn’t say. He, like most Marines—and just about everybody else for that matter—had to translate points to degrees. A compass point was one thirty-second of a compass rose, slightly more than five and a half degrees. It was good that this wormhole was only one point off galactic east; figuring seven points would have taken more time.

Bauer waited for more.

“So far, nothing has exited the wormhole,” Upshur said.

“I need to know instantly when something does.”

“Yes, sir. I will inform you immediately when something exits.”

“And get me Brigadier General Porter, ASAP.”

“Aye aye, sir!” Upshur wasn’t at all surprised by the “ASAP” rather than the more common, “At his earliest convenience.” The just-opened wormhole could only mean the aliens were about to make an appearance.

Less than a minute had passed since Bauer told Upshur he wanted his chief of staff, and the man was already there.

“You must have been waiting for my call.”

“As soon as I heard about the wormhole, I knew you’d need me.”

“You found out about it before I did? Upshur is my aide, he should report to me first.”

Porter shook his head. “He didn’t tell me. I was in the comm shack when the message came in from orbit.”

“Where do we need to aim to hit a target one point to starboard of galactic east?”

Porter shrugged. “Sometimes it seems the Navy thinks they’re still at sea in wooden ships with canvas sails.”

Bauer grunted. “Well, defending against starships coming from one point to starboard is going to be their job. We have to defend the ground from both land and air attack. Assemble the staff.”

“Aye aye, sir.”



Briefing room, 1st Marine Combat Force Headquarters,

Near Millerton



Word of the new wormhole traveled fast, and it was only minutes before every member of the 1st Marine Combat Force’s primary staff and their seconds were assembled, along with the commanders of all the major subordinate units.

“Gentlemen,” Bauer began, “we don’t know when the aliens are going to exit the wormhole or in what force. What we do know is, when they do come we can expect a most serious fight. Using only missiles launched from Mini Mouse, they killed or severely injured three quarters of ARG 17, and a third of TF 8. Along with the ships of ARG 17, the aliens killed or damaged more than half of VII Corps before those poor soldiers could even see the world they were on their way to. The surviving ships of the ARG, reinforced by some of the warships of TF 8, are currently undertaking a massive search and recovery mission where the ships or ARG 17 were killed or wounded.

“The Navy believes that the aliens no longer present a threat to their shipping from Mini Mouse. Perhaps they’re right, at least in terms of the aliens having attack-capable warships there. But their ground attack on the squads we sent as security on the SAR missions to Mini Mouse suggests that they have an unknown but possibly substantial ground force still present on the small moon. The Navy is currently investigating, via satellite, both moons, looking for anomalies that could indicate alien installations.

“The Navy, incidentally, refers to them as ‘the enemy,’ almost as though they are in denial that they aren’t human. We’ve all seen the vids, we know they aren’t human.

“For all we know, the aliens are still right here on Troy, hidden in underground facilities. Many times in the past, the ancestors of our Corps went up against enemies who lived and fought in caves. And died in them when Marines went in to dig them out. We have seen nothing to rule out the possibility that the aliens are underground.

“To that end, I want 3rd MAW to apply all possible resources to locating anomalies that could indicate caves or other sub-surface structures.” That he directed at Major General Reginald Myers, the commander of 3rd Marine Air Wing. “G-2, use local geological studies and reports to locate possibly usable caves within one hundred klicks of Millerton.” That was to Lieutenant Colonel Wendell Neville, his intelligence chief.

“In light of the fact that the remnants of ARG 17 and VII Corps are still in planetary space and not about to make planetfall, we will be on our own for the foreseeable future. So the rest of you, prepare your units to defend against attacks such as we saw in the vids of the initial invasion, and to attack when the aliens show themselves. At a time to be chosen by the enemy, we will be engaged with a foe of unknown strength and capabilities. I intend that the First Marine Combat Force will win.

“Brigadier General Porter, take over.”

With that, Bauer marched out of the briefing room. Everybody rose to their feet and stood at attention until Porter called out,

“Seats!” and began giving his instructions.