Chapter 22 – Operation Harvester

No sooner had the six PC's arrived than they shipped right out – keeping an eye on Hesperus to ensure that the Sa'arm didn't move faster than expected, and to give advance word if they did.

The Chosen Frozen went into high gear – if that were possible, as they had already been training frantically. Samantha found her father practically living in his white armoured battle suit, as the Marine infantry, artillery and light tanks went out again and again and again. They were drilling on all types of landing techniques, be it using Panthers, Kittens or the modified pods. The pods had been named after British World War II gliders: Horsa for the infantry landers and Hamilcar for the tank landers.

With battle in sight, she also noticed that the crowds at the Beauty Saloon were in a period of faux gaiety. The smiles seemed more forced, and when they thought their sponsors and dependants weren't looking, the concubines wore looks of deep concern.

Samantha responded by putting on a series of themed dances, with the Colonel's and Admiral's permissions. They knew their sailors and marines needed the distraction. The most popular night was the Battle of Britain theme, where every Marine and Sailor wore RAF dress uniforms from the period, bearing RAF rank as close as possible to their actual rank. Concubines wore outfits that resembled civilian garb of the time, although without underwear. The Admiral wore the uniform of RAF Fighter Command commander-in-chief Air Marshal Hugh Dowding, Colonel Deschenes (due to his remarkable resemblance to the man) dressed up as Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, and Samantha wore the uniform of an anonymous WAAF officer. Flags of the Royal Air Force and of the Commonwealth countries' air forces decorated the Saloon. The White Cliffs of Dover never sounded more meaningful, even though it evoked images from a previous century on another planet, and from a very different war.

The need to be ready communicated itself down to the Corps of Cadets. Never had Samantha's mother and aunt seen children so utterly serious about what was really intended as just something to keep them occupied. Every cadet platoon made it their mission to wring every drop of information from their mentors. The original plan for an hour's instruction was swiftly left in the dust. Frantically they studied the weapons and tactics, with most cadets qualifying on their units' weapons. For two weeks, no hockey games were played – what would have been thought essential on Earth was now a luxury on Thule.

Finally, two weeks before Samantha's fourteenth birthday, the fleet got word via extremely-high-speed message drone: Sa'arm scouts had sniffed at Hesperus. Operation Harvester was a "go".

The fleet that sailed from Thule within 8 hours of receiving that message was impressive: a carrier with two squadrons of A-20 Warthogs and one of F-50 Space Sabres, battle cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, corvettes, assault ships and functioning as a troop transport, the City of Montevideo. Back home, the only defences left were a platoon of armour (as the Admiral suggested, they had been forced to leave the Rommels behind due to lack of transportation space) consisting of the newest recruits to the 1204th, backed up by a flight each of F-104 Starfighters and F-105 Star Arrows, some Navy noncoms and the Corps of Cadets.

The concubines and dependants were teary-eyed as they waved goodbye to the men and women of the 12th Marine Brigade and Task Force 12. Samantha found herself commanding Lieutenant Carruthers to come back safely, as if he had any say in the matter. The Cadet infantry gave a snappy Present Arms, the troops marched through the nexuses to their ships, and the fleet was away.

It was a very lonely Thule after that.

It was a very lonely Hesperus – lonely for the crews of the Haddock, Halibut and Dace. They could only wait, hiding as best they could and maintaining radio silence, as a brace of Sa'arm hive ships, escorted by a hideous number of smaller vessels, headed for the rocky, dry planet. If any one of the little patrol combatants gave their position away, all three would likely be sniffed out and then snuffed out very quickly.

Suddenly, out of range of the Sa'arm fleet, the signatures of the Confederacy fleet dropping out of lightspeed showed up. Most of the Sa'arm escorts broke off to engage the new enemy.

"Exactly what we want," muttered Captain John Butler on CSS Halibut, sitting in his armoured pressure suit with the vision of outside the ship covering every inch of CIC bulkhead around him. "Message to Haddock and Dace. Dace takes the escorts as they pass by her, Haddock and Halibut will concentrate on the Volumnas."

Shortly after, the three PC's began disgorging missiles to try to ease the workload of the fleet ahead of them. As the Haddock was closer than the Halibut, the Haddock's missiles slammed into the port hive ship first, causing massive damage to her engines and disabling her hangar bay. The starboard hive ship wove an evasive pattern to avoid ramming or getting rammed by its dying sister, meaning that the Halibut's missiles struck less vital areas. The result was still fatal, but now not instantly so. Landing craft began to launch from her undamaged hangar bay as Butler launched a colourful tirade against the perfidious Swarm.

The rest of the Sa'arm forces began to mill as they grew confused. There was an observable threat in front, and clear evidence of an unobservable threat from the rear. Deciding that the threat you could see should be dealt with most expeditiously, they soon resumed their advance to the Confederacy fleet in front of them – only to lose the last of their big capital ships to large explosions. A trio of Vacunas, the smallest type of ship they had, broke off from the main body to check back along the track.

Turning your hull broadside-to is a fatal mistake when the enemy is bearing down on you and carries his heaviest guns pointing forward, and a rare one for the Sa'arm to make. It makes you as large and inviting a target as a Pennsylvania Dutch barn. Admiral Van De Graaf immediately ordered his Patricians Key Largo and Montego Bay, the fastest sublight ships in the fleet, to accept that invitation. Pushing their throttles to the firewall, they rapidly overtook and engaged the three retreating Vacunas, quickly turning the three scouts into miniature novae.

The rest of the Sa'arm fleet was feeling the impact of the righteous wrath of the Confederacy, through the impact of its massed weaponry. Bereft of its hive ships and with the massive casualties being incurred in the remaining vessels severely impacting its thought processes, both the Sa'arm combat skills and firepower were severely degraded by the time the Confederacy delivered the coup de grace.

The Admiral paced the CIC of CSS Howland. "Damage report," he ordered curtly, the stress showing through in his clipped speech pattern.

"Howland has five casualties, all will survive. Hector and Ajax have minor damage to their point-defence systems, but all casualties are expected to make a full recovery. Rayleigh Castle took a hit which resulted in a slow leak to the concubine quarters; compartment evacuated without casualties, and its ability to continue fighting remains unimpaired."

They'd come off lightly, it seemed.

"CSS Halibut to CSS Howland. Message for Admiral Van De Graaf."

"CSS Howland to CSS Halibut. Admiral is ready to receive message."

"CSS Halibut to CSS Howland. We have a situation on the surface of Hesperus III. Require Marine landing force most urgently."

Up to this point, the Chosen Frozen could do little more than cheer as each Sa'arm ship's destruction was announced. Then they noted that the assault ships' sublight engines were now at full thrust and their sergeants were shouting at them.

On board Kearsarge, Butch was laying into the troops with a will, marching through the scrambling privates. "Secure your armour! Lock and load! Board those Panthers! Move it, ladies, this isn't a Sudbury Saturday night, we're not going off for bingo!" Taking her place aboard the Panther, she swallowed a brief little fillip of fear, taking some comfort in remembering the pleasant night she'd spent with her concubines before she left.

Sergeant Redburn was likewise pushing his Marines to be their best. "We've trained for this, we're ready for this. Move, gentlemen! Mount up! Armour, prepare to drop! Button up your suits! Double-check, all rounds secured, interlocks on your engines are on. Remember, this is going to be the first time that the Swarm encounter our armour, let's give 'em all you've got."

The Kittens went first, the infantry assigned to them being the best that Colonel Deschenes had, First Company of the 1203rd Infantry Battalion. The moment they landed on a patch of high ground close to where the knot of Swarm landing craft were clustered, a company of Marines began pouring out to take defensive positions and secure the landing zone, as around them dawn broke on the battlefield. Commander Walker expertly steered his men to positions that would maximize interlocking firepower and guarantee that any curious Sa'arm would quickly find itself a dead Sa'arm. They frantically dug firing pits to place some form of cover between themselves and the enemy.

While the First Company of the 1203rd was digging in, the Warthogs of the 235th Ground Attack Squadron began laying down bombs and missiles, with the 423rd Interceptor Squadron's Star Sabres flying top cover. As it turned out, the Sabres weren't needed – the Sa'arm hadn't had the chance to evacuate their own interceptors when their ships sank. The 235th's planes quickly depleted their stores of ammunition, and were relieved on station by the 219th Ground Attack Squadron, allowing them to return to the Howland for rearming and refuelling.

By this time the rest of the 1203rd had emerged from the Kittens' transporter nexuses, and most of the little landing craft had retreated to the comfort of the Fleet. The pods had detached from the City of Montevideo and were beginning their controlled landing to the surface. The Panthers were already down ahead of them, disgorging troops and armour.

Colonel Deschenes was down in one of the first Panthers, along with an LAVT-105 armoured mobile command post. His crisp orders quickly created some semblance of order from the chaos of the initial landing. Immediately after the vehicle unloaded and opened for business, he found himself pointing to the map table and yelling at his battalion commanders, "The Swarm have landed on this rocky outcrop here, just to the north of where we've landed. There are only three ways in, through that gully in front of us, and these two gullies off to the sides. The 1201st is to mount a reconnaissance in force the second it's ready, to the southeastern gully. I need a squadron of Warthogs to fly cover, and a company of de Gaulles to accompany them." He regretted they'd left the Rommels back on Thule, but there just wasn't room. "As soon as the 1202nd lands, they'll mount up and start driving to the southwestern gully, accompanied by the tanks of the Second Company of the 1204th. Third Company will stay here in reserve, backing up the 1203rd. If the fight looks like it's pushing them this direction, half the 1203rd and the Third Company of the 1204th will mount up and hit them from the front. Any questions?"

Outside, the first of the pods were landing. Sergeant Redburn's platoon of tanks found itself tasked to assist the 1201st in its reconnaissance in force. The pods they arrived on quickly transformed themselves into fire bases, their sides falling to the ground like landing-craft ramps and with conventional cannon quickly firing off rounds from the upper floor. Their fire was being spotted by a pair of Space Sabres whose pilots had been trained for this very task.

Near the centre of the landing zone, two pods opened up one side each like an awning on a trailer to form a hangar of sorts. Soon, the Warthog Warriors had a close-in supply depot from which to rearm, grab a pee, a cup of coffee and an energy bar, and then quickly resume plastering the badly outnumbered enemy. There was some urgency: two Sa'arm would be able to reproduce quickly enough to strip a planet bare in no time. They had to get every one of the enemy before it had a chance to make Hesperus into Sa'Hesperus.

Another pair of pods formed a miniature field hospital. At present the only thing they had to do was prepare for casualties, but as long as no casualties were being incurred yet, the corpsmen were happy to lay out the panniers of emergency supplies and check the status of their med pods.

At high noon local time, the lead elements of the 1201st began making contact with the enemy. Between the tanks and the infantry, they made short work of the Sa'arm pickets, but with the gestalt mind it was certain the main body now knew exactly where they were. Warily but with a will they plunged deeper into the Sa'arm landing zone.

On the far side of the Sa'arm landing zone the 1202nd made contact of their own shortly thereafter, and between the two forces, the Sa'arm reluctantly began to give ground. Between the Navy, the air bombardment and the artillery, the numbers of Sa'arm invaders had been reduced to a mere handful, against the 4,000 men and women of the Chosen Frozen.

The humans refused to give quarter, knowing it would not be offered – that to the Sa'arm they were just so much biomass for their larder. Sergeant Redburn led his men on an almost suicidally desperate charge, blowing up fast-moving Sa'arm as soon as the even faster Confederacy armoured units got in range. The few hits from the Sa'arm bounced right off the armour without leaving a scratch.

At the Marine landing zone, things were becoming desperate for both sides. The surviving Sa'arm barrelled toward the defences that Lieutenant Carruthers and his engineers had hurriedly erected in an effort to recreate Hitler's Atlantic Wall. The tripedal troopers found themselves getting caught up in a bewildering variety of anti-Swarm obstacles as white-hot fire crashed into them from trenches and gun emplacements. Behind them, rapidly moving de Gaulle tanks and LAVT-102's laid down a murderous fire. Each minute saw more Sa'arm killed, rendering the hive mind more and more enfeebled. The ships they'd arrived in, blasted by the Warthogs into small pieces, were overrun by the 1202nd who proceeded to hold the area as the 1201st and its support elements raced by.

Finally the death toll reached the point where the Sa'arm were unable to function. They stood where they were, incapable of any form of motion, even of shooting back or ducking. The immobilized units proved quite easy to eliminate at that point.

Meanwhile, the Pendennis Castle and the Rayleigh Castle had a disconcerting experience: a Venti class destroyer popped out of hyperspace almost in front of their noses. Venti class destroyers were fast for Sa'arm ships but not particularly battle-effective, which was fortunate for the two lightly armed corvettes. They managed to get a few shots off and damage the craft before it got back into hyperspace, trailing debris as it did.

Its track indicated it was heading for the nearest Sa'arm-occupied star system to lick its wounds. Admiral Van De Graaf now faced a monumental dilemma: how many ships should he send to chase this pest?

"Sir," advised his senior aide, Lieutenant Simonetti, "if he gets home, they'll know they need to send more this way. We'll be placing the marines down there in danger."

"The Marines down on Hesperus still need bombardment support," pointed out his Marine aide Lieutenant Pigeon.

"I'm neither going to abandon the Marines below nor let the enemy bring reinforcements," Admiral Van De Graaf declared decisively. "Communications! Send to the PC's – follow that Venti."

He turned to his aides. "Let's wrap this up as soon as possible. I have a bad feeling about this."

Once out past the edges of the Hesperusat system, the Venti destroyer stopped, seemed to sniff around, and changed direction. By the time the three PC's caught up with the Venti's temporary rest stop, the vessel had come to a new heading at right angles to its original course and had disappeared. Because of its rather immediate jump back to light speed, it left no trace for the three stealthy ships to sniff at. Captain Butler immediately ordered the three to start a standard search pattern to try to detect the damaged destroyer.

If it headed for Thule, it could ravage the practically undefended base long before the Fleet could respond to any request for assistance. If it headed back to Sa'arm occupied lands, it could rustle up overwhelming reinforcements and once again, Thule would be threatened. They had to find and stop the little pest before it could make any more of a nuisance of itself.