Chapter 23; The First Battle of Hazy Point
Baraz hit the battle bridge running. No one noticed him as he slid into his place at a desk covered with comm. Screens. From this vantage point high above the troops, he could watch them from multiple directions through his monitors. What he saw both fascinated and horrified him. All around the base, centered in the sea of Batt, were shuttles landing driven by Pilot-Bots.
General Z, standing behind his nephew, thought wryly to himself that those robots had been one of the last inventions turned over to the Navy before the Revolution. They had been designed for landing on planets with a hostile atmosphere. It still, in the midst of this very serious situation, struck him funny. He had to admit with our laser batteries picking them off at a rate of three out of four. I guess this situation fits the definition of a hostile atmosphere. As the robots swooped through their field of vision, it was not immediately evident just what was occurring.
Then, one of the Comm Techs let out a yell. “All hell is breaking loose out there.”
The General then deciphered that the robots had been dropping square plates on the surface. “Look, every one…The Admiralty has succeeded in modifying the Terminal Tubes so it was now just a plate on a surface.”
“I see that, Grandfather…”
“I hope they haven’t changed the process. We need your Aunt Lea’s modifications to work if we are to win this day.” As an electronic haze formed around the jump terminals, it became apparent that their new Jump Tubes worked the same way as the old ones had, scrambling and reassembling atomic data. This allowed Lea’s new invention to do its work. They all watch in pride and horror as scrambled bits of men and machines materialized and immediately began freezing in the pre-dawn gloom, and the laser batteries were easily turning these piles of much into newly scattered atoms.
“Hold your fire, men…Those scrambled bodies are no threat to us. Save your shots!”
All along the Fighting Bridge, people began cheering. While they all knew this didn’t mean they were out of this trap, it sure did even up the odds a lot. Once it became clear that Keeth’s side had stopped sending troops to their death, General Z shook the Emperor’s hand and, without a word, turned and left the battle bridge.
Above the planet, on the Bridge of the Flagship Keeth's shock and dismay were evident. For a moment no one could tell what was going on.
Jar flicked the all talk button on his head set and shouted, "Stop sending troops! All ships, stop sending, NOW!" He slumped back in his chair, covering his eyes to try to blot out what he had seen, but he could not.
What he saw on his viddy scans of the surface was hundreds of thousands of troops who had died horribly. Here and there, he saw men with arms sticking out of their chests. Bodies could be seen to have re-materialized in two segments. Altogether, the Admiralty had lost over a hundred thousand troops lost in a matter of seconds. Mixed among the bodies, Jar could see millions of credits of equipment just frozen masses of reorganized junk.
He looked up to see his father looking down at him from his Battle Bridge. Jar leaped to his feet. “Sire…”
"Report."
"I'm sorry father. I regret to report that, unbeknownst to us, the opposition has developed some kind of jump tube scrambling device. I have halted the operation to assess the damages."
"Get to it, Mister. We have chased these people into this trap, and I expect to have them in my grasp as soon as possible."
Jar turned to the Comm-tech, "Order a full holographic assembly of Section Leaders in the Ward Room immediately."
"Aye, aye, Captain," he said even as he was broadcasting the message to all ships.
Keeth and his son stood at the head of the table. They were too nervous to sit as captain after captain told their stories. They had all seen the result of their disastrous invasion attempt. Right now, boiling on the desert surface were whole divisions of Fleet Marines, just gone.
They reviewed the scans showing the bodies and the mangled equipment lying ruined on the Sea of Batt. This was easily the worst defeat ever of this previously undaunted Corps. With seventy five per cent of their reserve troops still in stasis, they had barely thirty percent of their primary forces remaining to mount the next attack, if they dared to try it.
Admiral Keeth listened sullenly to the reports of how his invasion plan had gone so wrong. This new holographic meeting technology had vastly increased the speed of the Captain’s reports. They did not have to leave their vessels to gather for this meeting. The captains were glad to be out of blaster range should Keeth care to blame one of them for this disaster. He had been known to end his corporal and summary judgments with gun fire. The chatter got out of hand for a moment. The Security section and the Tek sections were blaming each other for shoddy intelligence work. The Vice Admiral of Security was bellowing about how they were the ones who found the Crown here.
Keeth had heard enough. He stopped pacing and looked at the room full of ghostly figures. "Commanders, this is not how to win a war!"
The room fell silent. He looked at the belligerent faces and bellowed, "Each section cannot succeed by blaming the other! I want answers, people, not finger pointing! Get back to your stations and GET…ME…ANSWERS!" He pushed a button on his desk and the ghostly figures of the committee faded leaving him and his two sons alone. Silently, the boys left to return to their teams to seek a solution.