Gods Dogs, Book 3
Chapter 32

Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.

Joe Adcock

The Guardians, Barry and Ruski, were like shadows during this entire trip. They were quiet and self-contained anyway, both because they were Sentics, but also because they were professional bodyguards. Unobtrusive but ever-present, constantly monitoring the environment, but their additional talent was precognition. So far, that talent wasn’t needed.

At 0230 this morning, it was. They froze in a sitting position in their beds for a moment, then each called out, “Incoming attack! Deploy defensive shields and missile counter-measures.”

Solomon immediately did so. Then he sent a hard military ping out in all directions. The asteroid was in interstellar space. The final ships bringing supplies or people left two days before. The Sangalore heavy hauler wasn’t due for another three days. Around them, it should have been empty space.

The radar return revealed six battleships and twelve cruisers. They were in a formation to launch a missile barrage.

General Quarters rang throughout the asteroid. The blast doors dropped on the visitor corridors. Servers and cooks at the cafeteria that worked the mid-rat shift hurried to their compound. Once all were accounted for, their blast door dropped, sealing them in.

The marines and SpecOps troops jogged past the armories in their compounds to grab their gear, and without breaking stride continued on to their stations.

Some of the marines were headed for the lower deck to reinforce the guards. Their approach disrupted an attack. The enemy forces were Chert, Dobal, and Baston soldiers trying to gain entry to the engineering level. The Guardian’s warning brought the guards that were already there to high alert. The ceiling-mounted turrets deployed, and the sneak enemy attack was blunted. Now the enemy faced marines to their rear as well. They quickly surrendered.

Ikel’s men began a systematic sweep to replace any other enemy soldiers. Finding none, they set up to repel boarders in the landing bay.

The team met in the control room. The techs were already present sorting the sensor feeds.

“What’s your plan, Solomon?” Quinn asked.

“Missiles are inbound. I’ll launch a NEFP response to thin them out. I already fired the main rail guns. I’m waiting for them to cycle. With the Guardians’ advanced warning, we might surprise these people and catch them flying a straight course.”

“Can you hold out against a force this size,” Moss asked as he looked at the screen showing the enemy formation.

“Probably. At least for a good while. I don’t see the point, though. The engines are warming up and we’re jumping out of here.”

“Good thought,” Quinn said. “Any chance to get a comm-bot near them to monitor their transmissions?”

“What are you thinking, Quinn?”

“Well, we could leave. It’s probably the best idea, but when those NEFP rounds explode it will create a lot of static.”

“I see where you’re going with this. I’ll prep a comm-bot. It would be good to know who is behind this, wouldn’t it?”

The asteroid gained speed slowly. Timing it so the NEFP defensive fire detonated when the asteroid’s VASIMR engines shifted from low to high gear, they sped straight away from the enemy formation, then turned to the right and pushed until the radiation flare started to diminish.

Blinded by the nuclear detonations and the force-projectiles exploding soon after, the enemy couldn’t track the asteroid once the engines shut and its full stealth engaged.

Then, one of the rail gun rounds Solomon fired earlier struck a glancing blow on a battleship, which caused them all to go to evasive maneuvers.

“Comm-torpedo away,” Solomon said. “It took a while to outfit it with heat shielding. It should get in range in a few hours.”

Moss said, “Now we play cat and mouse.”

“I’m calculating our jump options.”

“Cat and mouse is better,” Quinn said. “These are pride-driven elites. They don’t have the battle-sense to know what to do now that their sneak attack didn’t work.”

Solomon laughed. “Now we mess with their minds.”

Quinn grinned. “Now we mess with their minds.” After a moment he continued. “Pax, River, go interrogate the prisoners. We need to know if they have a way to communicate with the ships. I doubt it. I think this was a pre-planned, coordinated attack, but check it out. Also, see if you can get a read on who is running the show.”

“Okay,” they said in unison and left.”

Quinn studied the plots for a while before saying, “Using maneuvering jets, you can shape a course to get behind them.”

“Yes. It would take six hours or more.”

“Can you shape it to be five light-seconds away from them?”

Solomon said, “Right now, I’m making sure we don’t occlude stars from their perspective. Think about the degree of difficulty that entails.”

Moss gave it a shot. “You would need to see this way from their point-of-view. So, lots of extrapolation.”

Solomon didn’t reply, but Quinn went on, “At five light-seconds you could fire the big rail guns three times before they could notice. Jam their communication so they have trouble talking to each other. Unload all the smaller rail guns on the cruisers. Then start with the energy weapons.”

After a pause, which Moss would later characterize as petulant, Solomon said, “I’m running simulations to see how that might work.”

Quinn grinned at the techs, who were looking at him. They hadn’t seen anyone challenge Solomon before and it was unsettling for them.

“It might work,” Solomon allowed.

Quinn told Moss, “Let’s see how River and Pax are doing.”

They left the now-grinning techs, who returned to their jobs.

The marines put the prisoners in the brig, which was along another hallway off the main causeway. There were only eight prisoners. Twelve had been killed in the intense but short firefight. The highest ranking prisoner was a sergeant.

“They don’t know much,” Pax said when Moss and Quinn arrived. “They are the dumb, racist types that foam at the mouth about losing their way of life.”

Moss snorted. “You sound like you got slimed with their emotions.”

Pax took a breath. “It was toxic.”

“And no information,” River added. “The closest thing to real intel is the Cherts report to the same colonel that was in charge of the assassins.”

Quinn said, “Well, we have a battle plan. After the battle, we can open the blast door and have a chat with the colonel. For now, we’ve got time to get some sleep.”

The comm-bot got into position two hours later and began monitoring the comm traffic among the ships. The asteroid got into position six hours after that.

The battle was a brief affair as the asteroid unloaded its formidable arsenal in one full rotation of its spherical bulk. In the end, there were two battleships still intact but lifeless, and six battered cruisers. One of the cruisers was limping away. The rest of the ships were in pieces.

The shuttles, loaded with marines, began looking for survivors.

During the engagement, Solomon piped a feed of the battle into the habitats where the A-group’s delegations were able to witness the short battle.

Solomon told them the blast doors would be lifted once the recovery operation was complete. None of the five groups protested this precaution.

Eventually, the marines returned with less than a hundred survivors and the data cores for the ships. Solomon tasked bots to begin a forensic analysis on the data, and the Coyotes and marines went to work on the survivors.

The next day, Solomon raised the blast doors, and two marines took the Chert colonel into custody. They led him to an interrogation room in the brig section.

Pax was seated at the table in the room. The marines guided the colonel to the chair facing Pax, then retreated to stand at the door.

“Most of the ships’ officers are dead,” Pax began. “We did salvage quite a bit of intelligence from the data cores. They were not erased, which was fortunate for us, but not so fortunate for you. It seems you, colonel, were an integral part of this ambush. We will turn you over to the Chert authorities, but I want to know which of the council of elders was behind the ambush.”

The colonel’s eyes widened, and Pax knew he was surprised they knew it was the supreme council of elders, the one that guided the empire, that was involved.

“I suspect,” Pax went on, “it’s the entire council with only one of them actually organizing the resistance to the peace talks. That elder, we believe, is Patonon Sembol.”

The emotions flared in the colonel, and Pax allowed himself a tight smile. “Very good. Now, when you return to the Chert homeworld and meet with Elder Sembol, let him know that we know who he is. In the not-too-distant future, a Coyote team will arrive and dismantle his operation.”

The colonel stared back in defiant silence, and Pax finished, “You may go. Marines, lock him up with the others.”

The Sangalore heavy hauler had arrived, but they delayed a few more days. Anjevin sent a cruiser, at Solomon’s request, to transport the prisoners to the Accords station. Solomon also encrypted all the intelligence they gleaned and sent that to Anjevin as well.

Then they left for the Milky Way. It was a mostly pleasant trip, in that there were no more assassination plots, ambushes, or hostile take-over attempts.

Mission accomplished, the team eventually made it back to Penglai. They were mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted by now. Between the battles, the intrigue, and then the endless debriefings once they hit Congress space, they felt like they had been run through the proverbial wringer.

Master Lu restricted them to light training duty and heavy rejuvenation duty – massage, acupuncture, saunas, and the like. The medical staff gave them the once-over, and the psychology department helped them with their stress management routines.

After six weeks of rehab, their training schedule ended, and they were sent on block leave – six months doing something else. Then they returned and helped teach the second year Coyote candidate class. After that, they were the opposing force for militia battalions. Then they returned to full-time training as resident Coyotes at the monastery.

There were fewer residents, though. Coyote numbers were still low, and only ten or less newly qualified Coyotes joined their ranks each year. As a result, the demand was higher, and each team deployed more frequently.

Coyotes, like all Special Forces, were strategic tools. They solved problems that affected the course of a government’s interactions with other governments. From training insurgents to responding to environmental disasters, they were uniquely qualified in a wide array of skills – not the least of which was the ability to work with others, regardless of species.

After a few days as resident Coyotes, Master Lu called them to his office. They entered and Lu noticed the difference in their carriage. They now looked like penned up predators ready for release into the wilds.

They sat in the cozy alcove with the window framing sun-drenched mountains.

Master Lu asked, “Do you recall, from Earth’s history, the term ‘underground railroad?’”

“Something to do with slaves escaping to freedom,” River answered.

“Close enough,” Lu said. “Your friend, Lornalie Duval, has set one up to free the women of the three biological empires in Andromeda.”

“Good for her,” River responded.

Quinn remarked, “She’s got a deeper game, I’ll bet.”

“Yes,” Lu said with a smile. “A shadow government. She has the women debating the issues facing each empire and they are offering alternatives to what the actual government proposes.”

“How far has she got?” Moss asked.

“Far enough to cause concerns with the three patriarchies involved. They have petitioned the Congress to return these women to their respective empires to stand trial for sedition. The Congress refused, heated words were exchanged, and now there is no communication.”

“Calm before the storm,” Moss observed.

Pax said, “It looks like the Greek comedy Solomon sent her is paying dividends.”

“So it seems,” Lu said. “You will go to the world the Congress made available for them and protect their shadow government.”

Quinn asked, “What’s the Congress’ interest in this?”

“They see the policies the women are proposing as the ones that will ease those empires into more egalitarian structures. The transition would be less a bloody revolution and more of an evolutionary shift. Less chaotic and violent, and more a shifting of priorities that would foster free trade and harmonious relations with their neighbors.”

Moss chuckled. “Nice sentiment but probably wishful thinking on their part.”

“Undoubtedly,” Lu said. “Nevertheless, we are in agreement with that sentiment, and we are willing to help make the shadow government a viable political force.”

“Too bad they couldn’t just take over the treasury,” River muttered. “Like they did in the play.”

Lu chuckled. “They are setting up their own rival trading companies.”

“Wow,” Moss breathed. “It does sound like a dynamic organization.”

“The Congress is providing support,” Lu affirmed. “You’ll get the details when you arrive.”

He handed Quinn a data cube. “Here are your orders. Satya will arrive tomorrow to pick you up.”