SECTION 27
The squadron reaches its destination after a long, tedious flight, entering orbit around the planet in good order. There is no sign of a Ka’slaq incursion, and Ulnar worries that he has made a wrong choice. As Ulnar wades through the stack of reports beamed here by ultrawave, he soon has his worst fears confirmed. Not only has Endymion fallen to Ka’slaq raiders, but Baal, the most heavily populated planet in the sector, has as well. Overcoming his anger, Ulnar forces himself to scrutinize each report carefully in hopes of uncovering clues to the alien fleet’s abilities, intentions, and weaknesses.
These reports tell much more about the power of the Ka’slaq than they do about weaknesses or opportunities the Legion might exploit. In both cases, the survivors who managed to make coherent observations were most impressed by the speed. coordination, and awesome power of the alien ships. The primary Ka’slaq vessel is described as being about the size of a cruiser, smaller than Ulnar’s fighting ships, but armed with weaponry far superior to the Legion’s vortex guns. These ships are capable of sustained high-speed maneuvers in extremely tight formations beyond the capability of any human pilots, giving the Ka’slaq a vast advantage in rapid battle movement. Only the cruiser-type ship was noted in reports from Baal and Endymion, although ultrapulse scans showed another gigantic moving object which was probably Don Larno’s planetoid.
None of the warships in either of the garrisons escaped the Ka’slaq onslaught. Larno’s ships were annihilated as they attempted to punch through the enemy battle lines to threaten the larger object. The ships at Baal, on the other hand, were caught scattered. As testament to the power of the alien guns, there are descriptions of the Defiant, a battlecruiser that was reduced to a powerless, lifeless hulk by a single well-placed shot.
Battle tactics adopted by the Ka’slaq differed markedly in the two engagements. At Baal, the aliens seemed locked into a rigid plan of battle. Their initial dispositions changed very little as the fighting developed, and some Ka’slaq ships remained out of the Fighting even as others were forced to engage in major duels against pockets of resistance among the garrison ships. Although the aliens responded quickly to changing situations on an individual basis, they showed little tendency to support one another through radical changes in deployment or formation.
Endymion was a different kind of fight. Here, the alien fleet acted and reacted almost as one. Near the climax of the action, as Larno’s ships surged toward their huge target, the Ka’slaq cruisers seemed to abandon all other targets to mass all their strength against the Legion. The disparate nature of alien actions in the two battles disturbs Ulnar as he reads about them.
If the battles were fought differently, they were exploited in almost identical fashion. Once every fighting ship of the planetary garrison was destroyed, the target world was encircled by a large force of Ka’slaq cruisers and bombarded. In both cases, this orbital bombardment was systematic, thorough, and utterly merciless. With an obviously precise knowledge of the layout and organization of the two human colonies, the aliens directed the awesome power of their annihilator guns against the planetary surfaces. They knew the location of every inhabited area of each world, from cities and towns down to individual homesteads, and they destroyed them all. There are accounts from Endymion of one town being reduced to slag even as the inhabitants tried to surrender to their conquerors. The only ones to escape from either world were the crews or passengers aboard a handful of merchant ships already near the fringes of the systems when the attacks began. The ships were able to bring back some word of the assaults, but the remoteness that allowed them to avoid the Ka’slaq also obscured the details of these engagements.
Two planets, one of them a thriving colony world with over a hundred million inhabitants, have fallen to the ruthless assault of the alien Ka’slaq, and through it all, Ulnar’s actions have proven worse than useless. If his next choice goes no better, more of the people he is pledged to defend may die. Pain and guilt twist Ulnar’s features into an anguished frown. He reaches for the communications switch to issue new orders to the squadron. This time his orders must be right.
If Ulnar orders the squadron to go to Endymion, go to section 53.
If Ulnar orders the squadron to Baal, go to section 66.
If Ulnar sends the squadron to Ulnar 118, go to section 63.
If Ulnar issues orders to move the squadron S.C. 170, go to section 68.
If Ulnar gives orders to return the squadron to St. Germaine, go to section 74.
If the squadron receives orders to go to any other destination, go to section 73.
If the squadron remains at its present location, go to section 71.