Episode Nine: The Approaching Storm
Zedil scowled at the viewscreen, analyzing the information that was being shown there. He was, at the least, relieved to be headed back to the Micronian planet...
It had seemed like an insult, initially, when Breetai had ordered him to remain behind with a small task force and maintain a watch on the Micronians' activity. It was a dismissal, it seemed...with the Battle Fortress fleeing the system, the threat from a single planet that was just beginning to make its way into space seemed trivial.
He'd learned respect, the hard way, for the Micronians. His task force was down several ships...and Breetai hadn't seen fit to replace them. Apparently, the Battle Fortress had been taking its own toll, out at the edges of the star system.
But his relief came from the fact that he no longer needed to tolerate Khyron's insouciant manner. His aggressive tactics were the sole justification for his rank...and it irked Zedil to have to show any respect for the Zentraedi whose reputation sometimes had him doing as much damage to his own troops as whatever enemy they were fighting at the time.
Much better, Zedil agreed, to be away from that, back operating on his own and trying to find some way to exploit the Micronians. He lacked the facilities to reduce any of his own troops to send in as infiltrators...he'd been limited to more conventional methods of intelligence gathering.
And then, not so long ago, the relay team he'd left on the Micronian's moon had gone silent. Discovered, no doubt...how, he was unsure. After so much time, with such a consistent stream of reports, it had seemed like they'd found a flawless camoflage...
Yet another reason to NOT underestimate the Micronians, he reminded himself. Despite Khyron's braggadocio, their diminutive enemies were more resourceful and dangerous than anything the Zentraedi had faced before, or at least anything Zedil could recall. Yes, they were massively outnumbered...but in spite of that, they fought on...fought even harder, it seemed. While the Zentraedi could turn out a fleet that could destroy the whole world in a single sortee, Zedil had his doubts about any lesser measures they could take.
This would require a very measured approach...
"Send out five recon squads. Let's make sure these sensor reading are accurate. I want to be sure where ALL of their ships are." Not that long ago, he would have raced in without a second thought. The Micronians had eliminated two of his larger ships, already...at heavy cost to their own forces, yes, but they could repair their equipment faster than anything he'd ever seen, while his own troops were all combat personnel. His ships all still bore very visible scars of their prior encounters. He did not want to find himself surprised by unexpected Micronian forces.
Fifteen pods launched, fanning out in a dome shape that preceded the Zentraedi task force heading back to Earth, in clusters of three, all close enough together to lend fire support, but far enough apart to expand the available sensor data massively.
One of those clusters sped past Mars, dodging around the still-expanding cloud of wreckage that was left from their one undisputed victory against the Micronians...the one ship they'd managed to destroy without suffering major losses of their own.