Chapter 3

The Battle of Forge

Control of all of the solar system’s security systems can be exercised from any of the five Security Centres; there’s a classified back-up centre on Hammer and another on Anvil that are known only to a very select few. In daily operations the Anvil Security Centre handles the security of the town while the Space Station Centre handles the immediate space near Anvil and the Hammer Security Centre handles the rest of the solar system. The Hammer Security Centre has the most staff and work, with very little happening in the Anvil Security Centre control room. Thus the Anvil Security Centre often has a short crew of three or four on duty.

The month before Lorna and Morgan’s nineteenth birthday Forge had celebrated its first year of operation as a full colony when they have an unexpected group of visitors - planetary raiders.

As two of the few trusted people with any actual military training both Morgan and Lorna have extra duties as Security Supervisors which has them in the rotation for the ’Duty Officer’ at one of the three security centres. Morgan and Lorna arrange to have their scheduled duties at the same time so they can have their other duties together whenever possible. On this day Morgan is in the Space Station Security Centre while Len is in the Hammer Security Centre and Lorna is in the Anvil Security Centre. The three of them believe in ’walking their watch,’ which means they spend their time on watch walking about the Security Centre Control Room instead of sitting at the desk at the back of the control room the way most of the others Duty Officers do their shifts.

Access to all of the security centres is restricted to the security staff, but Lorna also closes and locks the blast doors because she hates to have the other centre staff interrupt her shift, which often happens when some of them use her being tied to duty as an opportunity to spend time with her. Today this little quirk of Lorna’s has major benefits for the colony.

Mid-shift another Duty Officer for each of the Security Centres enters their code and opens the door to allow a group of armed men to enter the room as part of a coordinated effort to take control of them. The entry of the men on Hammer and the space station has the staff on duty turn to look at the door just as some alarms activate on the control boards. Both Len and Morgan also turn to look at the door. However, on seeing the men are armed and hearing alarms they do not turn to the controls, instead they reach inside their shirts and draw their personal weapons.

Len and Morgan open fire at the same time as the armed men do. Where the beams of the attackers kill a few of the duty crew and do some damage to the control systems the explosive rounds fired by Morgan and Len rip apart the attackers. The dozen attackers in each of the centres are killed with only three rounds by each of the defenders before Len and Morgan turn their attention to their control boards. The control room is now wasted space as the monitoring systems are badly damaged.

However, on Anvil the attackers are stopped by the locked blast doors so Lorna has time to respond to the alarms, analyse the situation, then she hits the System Wide Attack Alarm to send everyone to the shelters and to initiate all of the defences. Lorna glances at the monitor for the camera showing the Security Centre Control Room entrance, then she flips up a panel to expose a special set of controls, selects a button, and pushes it. She grins as she watches the concealed beams cut the attackers at her front door to pieces. She then moves over to a control panel and enters a command to bring up a control menu. She selects two items and then enters the security passwords to activate the programs Smoke and Mirrors. One of the basic security measures is for the children and other dependents to go to the meeting hall, go through it to the basement, and board a special train to take them to the Safety Hide-out. Today that won’t happen as they expect because the train will go to another location and the area around the known hide-out now has the traps there activated.

Now that the people who are her main direct responsibility are on their way to safety, as the rest will happen automatically, Lorna turns to look at the main board, then swears. Looking at the two red lights she asks, “Anything about why the other control rooms are off-line?”

David, the second in charge of the shift, replies, “The cameras showed a group of armed attackers in each centre shooting up the staff and the control boards before they went off line.”

Lorna slowly nods while she places the communications unit on her left ear while walking over to the main monitor showing the situation for the whole solar system. She studies it for a moment, evaluates the thirty ship attack force and their configuration, then she activates the comm unit, and says, “Anvil Security to all Forge Defence Forces. Anvil Security has control, Senior Lieutenant Austin in command. We have thirty attackers at the second outer sensor line. They appear to be three large troop carriers, two large general personnel carriers, five large cargo ships, five heavy cruisers, and fifteen light combat ships. They’re in standard assault force formations. We’ll use Plan Charlie Six Four when they hit the first inner sensor line. All units acknowledge by activation signal.”

While she watches the activation lights for the combat forces come up she wonders how many of their installations are out of action due to the actions of other enemy spies. She’s worried as the worst case scenario did not envision such a strong attack force. Lorna is not happy when two of the main beam emplacements do not activate. She thinks, Well, whatever happens, we’ll hurt them bad. Now to see how much damage we do. She sighs as she watches the enemy force move in on the system she now defends.

In the Hammer Security Centre Control Room a glance tells Len this control room is not operational, so he says, “This is dead. Tim, Joe, see to our injured then tell the off-duty staff to go to their other combat posts. The rest of you follow me to the back-up control room.” Many of them are stunned by the information about a back-up control room, but they still react fast to follow the running Len out of the room, and they stay with him as he races through the corridors and rooms of the moon base.

In the Space Station Security Centre Control Room a glance is all he needs for Morgan to know the control room is as dead as the attackers. He says, “Go to your emergency stations and help with the evacuation of the people on the station to Anvil and Hammer.” He races out of the room while he gets out his communicator. While running through corridors he hits a speed dial, waits for an answer, then he says, “Dana, Morgan, initiate an emergency launch power up of Kingfisher as I have to go hunting.” He smiles when she acknowledges his orders.

A few minutes later Morgan races into a small hangar area where two people are checking over the hand sensor readings they have while they walk around what is an oversized planetary transport unit for four people, but this has seating for only one person along with two propulsion units in the rear where just one is expected. Morgan stops beside a cupboard by the door he enters by, he opens the cupboard, and he takes out a light-duty space suit commonly called a ’skinny’ which is meant for use on-board ships where there is a risk of losing the air, like on a combat ship. Morgan slips on the skinny, puts a comm unit on his ear, slips the clear helmet for the skinny on, then he walks to the vessel in the middle of the room, and he climbs into the control seat. While he takes a moment to check all of the systems are on-line and working he says, “Dana, Jane, take my shuttle, load all you can, and get off of the station as quick as you can. I didn’t get a chance to see the full size of the attack force, but it’s a big one.” The two women who work with him on this project nod as they continue with the launch check procedures.

In another minute all is checked and approved. The women leave the room, lock the door behind them, and run for the other hangar while they call out to everyone they see, “Private shuttle this way. Follow us and let’s get out of here before the bad guys get here.” Everyone who hears them follows them as the main shuttle hangars are on the other side of the space station to where they are.

Morgan watches them close and lock the door, then the blast door slides across the main door to keep the space station safe. Once the blast door is seated the outside wall hangar doors open, and Morgan eases out of the hangar before he turns, then he opens the engines to power away.

Morgan is accelerating away from the space station toward the attack force when he hears Lorna’s broadcast on the size of the opposition. He activates his comm unit and says, “Anvil Security, Captain Kesselring, I’m in orbit with Kingfisher and out bound to the enemy position. I’ll swing wide to go around the lead units to attack their troop transports.”

Lorna is relieved to hear Morgan is alive and active, but all she says is, “Acknowledged and approved, Captain Kesselring. Good hunting.”

Everyone listening in on the Forge Defence Force communications are surprised about the ranks Lorna and Morgan have as the people did not know they had any actual military ranks, but they all know the two wouldn’t lie about such things. However, they all wonder what Morgan is flying as it’s clear it has some combat capability to do as he said he will. While they are worried about the coming battle, they feel better to have a few good surprises like this occur.

A few minutes later Len leads his team through a door marked ’Waste Treatment Room’ and into the back-up Control Room. All of the people with him spread out and start turning monitors and systems on. In a moment the room is fully operational. Len activates his Command Comm Unit on a private circuit to Lorna and says, “Lorna, Len, I’ve the back-up Hammer Security Centre Control Room up and running. You stay in command and direct traffic while my people operate the equipment for you from here.” Lorna agrees so he turns to his staff and says, “Anvil has the combat control. We’ll assist with weapons targeting and operation. Our job is to keep everything on-line and working.” They all nod while they go about their work as they all know you don’t change the combat commander in the middle of a battle, unless forced to by the commander being injured.

Len checks over everything then he contacts some of the Hammer Ground Force commanders with orders to attack and take back control of the off-line beam installations. Then everyone just waits for it to start.

Military Ranks

The Forge Defence System is different to most other systems in they only give military ranks to those who have prior military experience and they’re employed at the rank they previously had. The only exception is those they recruit and are trained by the employed retired military are given the rank of Recruit when being trained then are made Trooper on passing their military training. Naturally, they go up in rank in the same way every other military organisation does as they develop and the force expands. All of the other Forge Defence Forces members have civilian titles with equivalent responsibilities and authorities to the military ranks for their positions. Thus Len is in charge of the Forge Defence Force as Chief Senior Supervisor as he never had any actual military rank, despite getting a lot of military training from his father and his friends while growing up. At this time there are only three officer members of the Forge Defence Forces: Captain Kesselring, Senior Lieutenant Austin, and Junior Lieutenant Benson who’s the commander of the Ground Forces and is on Anvil organising the defence of the town. The rest of those with military ranks are retired Non-commissioned Officers commanding Ground Force units on Anvil and Hammer with two Senior Warrant Officers in charge of the two Customs Cutters which are their only armed combat ships. The Customs Cutters are assigned to hinder landing forces.

When Lorna and Morgan announce their military ranks most of the other Forge Defence Forces members are surprised as that information was not made public in Acadia. However, they’re happy to have more trained military officers in their command structure, and it explains why such young people were appointed in charge of the Control Centres.

Every other military organisation in space usually starts with a person selecting the rank they want and then others are assigned ranks below them. Over time the system changes to match training and other factors, but it does result in some organisations having people with ranks they never earned within an established military organisation. Thus the man in charge of the attack force is an Admiral, despite only rising to the level of being a Captain in the Federation Fleet before being discharged from the service for unacceptable activities.

Developments

Once everyone in the Forge Defence Force space combat units are settled and ready Lorna switches to a general broadcast frequency and says, “Senior Lieutenant Austin to the unknown force of ships entering this solar system, be advised the system is inhabited and you are to turn aside then depart the system or move back to the outer edge of the heliosphere and send an unarmed ship with a delegate to discuss why you’re here. Failure to obey these instructions will see your force engaged by our defence systems as we will regard you as an attacking enemy.”

On the flagship of the attacking force an officer says, “It seems our advance troops have done their job if a senior lieutenant is in charge of what is left of their defence forces, Admiral. I wonder how much of their sensor net she has access to!”

Admiral Kelly replies, “A senior lieutenant is probably the officer in charge of their customs cutter force and is limited to her ship systems, no matter how much of the data the sensor net can send her. We’ll have to watch out for some of their large beam installations fired by their crews under local control, but they can’t have enough coordination to trouble us before we take them out. Tell all of the ships to stay with the battle plan.”

While there is no communications directed toward the planet the sensor net does detect and pick up the enemy transmission to the other ships in their force. Knowing they’re going to continue has Lorna giving targeting information to the eight beam installation under her control. At this range their beams won’t harm the larger ships, but they can take the smallest of the combat ships out of action when fired at maximum power.

On Hammer Len is busy amending one of the control programs for the main beam systems as he knows he won’t have trained crews to man the two installations taken by the traitors, so he’s preparing to use them as one shot super beams under remote control.

Lorna moves to a special control panel, checks the settings, records a report of the situation with copies of the two recent transmissions, then she launches the emergency beacons on their way.

On the attack force flagship an officer responds to an alert on his panel before reporting, “They’ve just launched their emergency beacons, Sir. They’re too far away and too fast for us to chase down.”

Admiral Kelly swears then asks, “Any idea of where they’re going?”

“Based on the track we have so far, Sir, there are six beacons with two heading to Federation space, two toward Acadian space, and two are on their way to the Rainbow Kingdom. Each pair already has a deviation from its mate, so they’re likely aimed at different planets in each realm.”

Kelly thinks for a moment then says, “It seems either a control centre still has some capability or they also gave the customs cutters the ability to launch the beacons. Since we’ve not been able to stop their launch, as planned, we need to make sure we finish with them within the twenty day time-frame we have before a force can arrive from the nearest planet in the Federation space. Inform all commands of the problem. At least they couldn’t have had much information on us to send in the beacons.”

Unknown to Admiral Kelly the sensors of the Forge System sensor net are a lot more capable than any other sensors he knows about. As any of the HAK Systems research people think of a way to improve the sensors the research project becomes an additional part of the system sensor net so they can get real-time data to work with. Thus the sensor net is about three times more extensive than was reported on by the spies of those behind the attack. The sensors are also much more capable. Thus the data package in the beacons have good identification of each ship class in the attack force, and also the names of the few ships that have a name on the exterior of the ship. The data available to Lorna is more extensive than was uploaded to the emergency beacons. That data is being examined by all of the people involved in the defence of the system, and some of the research staff as well.

The Hammer Ground Forces sent to recapture the two beams taken by the traitors report their recapture to Len. The Sergeant in charge says, “We have control of the installations, Supervisor, but the crews are dead. Half were murdered by the traitors and we had to kill all of the traitors. Also, the local control systems are destroyed and there is some damage to the remote control systems. Otherwise the weapons are intact. What do you want us to do now, Supervisor?”

Len has the Sergeant describe the damage in detail then says, “It looks like the local control damage was during your fight for control of them and the damage to the remote control was to take out the telemetry to us. Can your electronics specialist connect your spare communicators direct to the beam control systems, Sergeant?”

“I’ll have him look at them, Supervisor. Give us a few minutes.”

Several minutes later Senior Trooper Stevens says, “Supervisor, there is no way I can set up our spare communicators to give you full control and telemetry. However, I can give you very limited operations. What do you want me to set up, Supervisor?”

Len works on his program while he says, “First set me up to transfer some changed programs to the control system. Then I want you to see how much you can give me in the way of local control sensor reports and the ability to train the beam as well as fire it.”

It takes them a few more minutes to set up and transfer the software, then a few more to set up three communicators to operate both of the beam installations. This is only possible because the installations are so close together. One of the communicators provides a limited sensor feedback to Len, but it’s such he can use it to aim the beams. The other two communicators allow Len to train and fire the beams. Once it’s all set up they test it as much as they can, but they don’t do a test fire. Then Len has them secure the locations and withdraw from them.

When the Sergeant queries the command to pull out Len says, “When I fire those beams they’re likely to blow up and kill anyone there. So get your people out of there, Sergeant.”

“Acknowledged. Withdrawing and welding the access doors shut as we pull back, Supervisor.” The troopers withdraw with all of the dead.

Contact

Spaceships move at great speed, but space is huge, even within a solar system. So it takes time for the attack force to move deeper into the Forge solar system and close on the defence line set by Lorna. Much data is collected by the many sensors the attack force passes on their way in. All of the people in the space facilities evacuate to Anvil or Hammer, to the one that’s closest to them. Kingfisher swings wide around the attack force to reach his intended position in the rear of the enemy force. Due to the small size of his ship and how far out he is while passing the attack force the few enemy who pick up Morgan’s movements on their sensors ignore him as they believe he’s in a small craft fleeing from the coming battle. The Forge Ground Forces on Anvil have some small skirmishes with other traitors seeking to damage the defence systems. While some damage is done it’s not as extensive as the traitors thought it would be, and the repairs are underway within minutes of the damage being done.

While the attack force moves closer to combat Admiral Kelly and all of his senior staff review what they know of the defences from their spies and the amount of damage to those defences they expect their advance agents to have done. If all had gone to plan the only organised defences left would be the customs cutters and a few beam installations in local control, so while they expect to take a little damage they expect no real damage to their ships or to face any effective resistance to their attack.

The attack force reaches and crosses the designated line in space set by Lorna, so she activates her communicator and says, “Fire.”

The eight fully manned and operation beams fire at the eight nearest small combat ships at full power. The beams are more powerful than most of those of their size are, so the damage they do to the ships is more than is expected by the attackers. Where they were ready for a few lower power beams they get hit with eight high power beams and eight badly damaged small combat ships are now falling out of line due to the loss of their drive systems and other serious damage to them. The rest of the small combat ships immediately start evasive actions to make future long range shots very difficult and the target safer, due to being harder to hit.

As soon as the opening shots hit home Kingfisher turns and goes to full power as Morgan attacks the line of troop transports. This little ship is an in-system fighter built as part of a research and development project Morgan initiated. While small it has new very fast propulsion systems, two launchers which are like the weapon his grandfather gave him that’s been seriously upgraded for space combat, a new defence screen as powerful as that of a dreadnought class combat ship, and a pilot unit. The rest of the craft is jammed with comm gear, sensors, fuel, and rounds for the guns. It’s little more than a heavy weapons platform with its own propulsion system under direct manual control by the pilot.

Morgan knows the combat troops will be on the troop launch decks getting ready to load into the landing shuttles, so he plans his attack to be along the shuttle bays to eliminate as many of the enemy troops as he can in his opening run. He races in at the closest troop transport.

On the flagship one of the sensor technicians says, “Sir, that small ship fleeing the system has turned and is now heading toward the support ships.”