by Saxon Andrew
“They’ll still see the trails through the atmosphere; you can’t move that fast without leaving a particle trace.”
“I know; however, I believe Admiral Gibbs will have their undivided attention at that particular time.”
Dat stood up and held out his hand to Blacky, “I’ll be there as well.”
Blacky didn’t take Dat’s hand, “I thought there was only going to be one Jukebox there.”
“No, there’s going to be two and we’re going to have you dropped from four Rovers on the night side of the planet while we do our dance in daylight.”
Blacky looked at Katherine, “I don’t know that it’s a good idea to put him in this kind of danger; he’s too important to lose.”
Dat tilted his head, “Blacky, you’re the leader of your species and you’re jumping to the planet; how is this any different?”
Blacky stared at Dat for a long moment, “It just is.” Dat pushed his hand out again and Blacky reluctantly took it. “We’re both doing what has to be done. Just make sure you come back.”
“You do the same.”
“I will.”
• • •
“Lydia!”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. Your chair is waiting for you.”
“I could care less about my command chair.”
“I’m waiting for you!”
“Do you understand?”
“I don’t want to see you hurt. But I guess I know that if our roles were reversed and you died and I wasn’t there; I’d never forgive myself. I understand why you feel as you do.”
“No you don’t.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”
“If I lost you, I wouldn’t want to continue. We will survive together or we will die together. Either way, that’s the only way I’ll do it.”
“I understand. Please come back to me, now.”
Lydia smiled, “I’m on my way.”
• • •
Katherine looked at the assembly of ships gathered over the Madator’s planet and shook her head. The shuttles were going up into space and looked like a massive cloud of gnats as they reached orbit and began entering the landing bays of the million Rovers that were waiting on them. Ten weeks had passed as the ships taking part in the exercise were brought in from the colonies so the Grillen probes wouldn’t see them. She pulled the view in closer and saw the two Jukebox Battleships looked out of place in the huge ship gathering. She shook her head and didn’t like that two of the Union’s best Admirals were taking part in the massive undertaking.
She looked at her scanner reports and saw that millions of the Madator population were also being placed at risk, but they were all bobbing at a fast rate as they entered their shuttles. It appeared they were excited at the prospect. The skies over the space port were filled with millions of them gliding and screaming with joy for their fellow warriors. She wondered how many of them were going to survive.
After twenty hours, all ships reported in ready and Katherine activated her communicator, “You have a daunting task ahead of you and I wish all of you success in your efforts. Captains, do not linger at your targets. Make the drop and get out. Admirals Arvolo and Gibbs, take the shot and get out as well. Thirty seconds to jump. Make us proud; the Union is counting on you.”
The massive fleet oriented to their target lines and their jump drive fields energized as they counted down the time to jump. In an instant, all of them disappeared.
• • •
“Sire, I have massive numbers of Union ships moving in toward the Red Sector.”
“Where did they come from?”
“I don’t know; our probes didn’t see any movement in their galaxy. Those ships had to come from somewhere else.”
“WHERE ARE THEY GOING?”
“It appears they are headed toward the planets we invaded.”
“Launch the defense fleets to their assignments.”
The order went out and a hundred major Grillen Fleets turned and jumped to the planets they had been ordered to defend.
• • •
The massive fleet of Rovers blew by their target planets and ejected the Madators. They remained in Green Space as they turned and returned to the Milky Way. The Madators began their long drop to the surface.
• • •
Dat and Gibbs arrived above the planet with the largest construction sites. The two massive Jukebox Battleships were completely automated with only two crewmembers operating the ships. The Grey Ships in orbit immediately accelerated toward their positions. “Micah, open fire with the guns.” The mile long Jukebox Battleship shook with the millions of plastic shells being fired from the guns. The hundreds of Grillen Ships move forward at maximum acceleration and didn’t see the clouds of shells until the last moment. It was too late to jump away. Twenty seconds later the massive Grillen Defense Fleet arrived and the Jukeboxes started firing a wave of penetrators at the first to arrive.
• • •
Dat watched the approach of the Grey Ships and kept his hand on the jump button, “Gresha, tell me what’s happening.”
“Hold on!”
“Gresha! There’s not much time.”
Gresha screamed, “It’s working! The Grey Ships are falling apart.”
• • •
Gangal watched the three Grey Ships he was following blast into small pieces as something hit them. He would have been destroyed but the first three ships had cleared a path through the incoming shells. He moved into range and fired at the giant ship, just before the second wave of shells blew his ship into fragments.”
“ONE OF THEM HAS BROKEN THROUGH! IT’S FIRING!”
Gibbs saw the ship on his scanners and the beam lanced out and hit the rear of his ship. The rear thrusters were blown away and the jump drive emitters on the rear were disintegrated. “DAT, WE’VE BEEN HIT! WE’VE BEEN HIT! Get out of here.”
Dat saw Gibbs’ ship burning in the rear thrusters and he shook his head as tens of thousands of Grillen Ships surrounded the stricken vessel. He hit the jump button and disappeared.
“Micah, status?”
“We’re dead in space. We can’t jump out and our thrusters are gone.”
Gibbs looked at Lydia and reached over and took her hand, “I’m so sorry, my love.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” She looked at her panel, “Why haven’t they killed us?”
Micah said, “It appears they want to capture our ship to discover our technology.”
“Micah, you have to activate your self-destruct circuit.”
“The controls for it were damaged. I’m unable to do it.”
Chapter Seven
Dat and Gresha remained in green space and Gresha activated the communicator, “Gibbs, what’s happening!?!”
Lydia pressed her console, “We’re being surrounded by their ships with a screen of Grey Ships about three miles out. It appears they want to take the ship. I don’t know if we can stop them; the self-destruct circuit is disabled.”
Dat come on the frequency, “We have to get you out of there.”
Gibbs answered, “Dat, you’d need a major fleet operation to even get close to us and, if you brought one in, I’m sure they’d bring in more ships than you could handle. You have to come back and launch penetrators at us.”
“Gibb’s, I’m not certain we could get anywhere close to you without being destroyed.” Gresha was starting to cry and Dat thought furiously. There was no way he could launch a penetrator into those ships and have it get through…but…could one get out? He immediately yelled, “Gibbs, put your computer on the channel.”
“It’s linked in.”
“Even if your self-destruct circuit is disabled, are you capable of overloading your reactors?”
“Give me a moment.” Dat waited and after ten seconds he heard, “I can.”
Gibbs said, “Do it now!”
“Delay that order.”
“We’ve got to des
troy this ship, Dat!”
“We’ve got to get you out first.” Gibbs and Lydia were shocked by the suggestion.
The computer was the first to respond, “Just how would you accomplish that, Sir?”
“Gibbs, you know the Jukebox’s penetrators are as a big as a Rover. If you remove the explosive package from the nose of a penetrator, there should be enough room for you and Lydia to get inside. Your computer can fire a massive wave of plastic shells and launch you out behind it. You’ll be clear of their ships in less than a second. They won’t be able to respond in time.”
Gibbs thought about the idea, “But they would follow us immediately.”
“I’m going to call Shane in and have him meet me on your path. He’ll use a tractor beam to pull you inside his force field and we’ll jump away.”
Lydia shook her head, “Dat, that sort of timing is impossible. Besides, the acceleration would kill us.”
“Gibbs, the penetrators are weightless when they launch. You’ll be fine.”
Gibbs shook his head, “Thanks, Gresha; I’m not thinking clearly.”
Dat yelled, “It’s our only chance and you will do this!! Am I clear?”
Gibbs looked at Lydia, “Yes Sir, we’ll start removing the package.”
“Let me know when you’re ready. Computer, do you see a path where you can fire the penetrator that will get through their ranks?”
“I do, Sir. There are actually ten of them.”
“They’ll probably start to disappear as more Grillen Ships arrive. Send me the track you choose just before launch.”
“Yes Sir.”
Gibbs jumped up and inserted a data module into his panel before he went to the back wall and pulled out a space suit, “Micah, I want everything in your personality module downloaded into this chip.”
“Commencing download.”
“What are you doing?”
“We’re not leaving without Micah. Hurry and get dressed.” They left the bridge and ran to the tube and sat in the car, “Micah, what penetrator should we use?”
“Number forty eight.”
Gibbs entered the destination into the car’s panel and it shot out into the tube.
• • •
The Grillen Admiral arrived and saw the huge ship hanging in space with its rear smoking, “What happened here?”
“Sire, that ship fired some kind of projectiles at our new warships and blew them apart. One of our ships managed to get a shot off before it was destroyed and disabled it.”
The Admiral stared at the Union Warship and coveted the technology it contained, “Are we going to be able to capture it?”
“We’ve ordered a penetration ship and it will arrive in twenty minutes.”
“Why is it taking so long?”
“The crew was not on board and they have to be brought up from the planet.”
“Why weren’t they on the ship?”
“Sire, we only use a penetration ship once every five or ten years.”
The Admiral stared at the subordinate and shook his head.
• • •
“Captain Matthews!”
“Yes Sir.”
“I hope you’re as good with a Jukebox as I’ve heard you are.”
“What do you need?”
“I want you to match speed with a penetrator and pull it into your landing bay.”
Shane stared at Arvolo on his display and smiled, “That’s funny. What do you really need?”
“Captain, Admiral Gibbs and his flight officer are going to be inside that penetrator and you are going to have to match speed, pull it into your landing bay, and get out before the Grillen Fleet arrives.”
“Sir?”
“You will do this and you will succeed! Do I make myself clear!?!”
“Yes Sir. I need to know the path it’ll be taking.”
“You’ll get it just before it launches.”
Shane shook his head and then nodded, “I’ll try to do it.” Admiral Arvolo disappeared from the display and Shane said, “What is the speed of a penetrator?”
“Three quarters the speed of light.”
Shane shook his head, “This is crazy.”
“If we move into normal space and accelerate to sixty percent light speed and accelerate as it approaches, we might pull it off.”
Shane heard his computer make the suggestion and leaned back in his chair, “We can’t emerge into normal space until it launches; the Grillen would see us.”
“We’ll enter just before the countdown reaches zero. We’ll need two seconds to move to the track.”
“Please send that information to the Admiral.”
“Are you too afraid to do it?”
“Just call me chicken.”
“What’s that?”
“You don’t want to know.” Shane turned to Gem, “You need to get down to the landing bay and work the tractor beam. We’re only going to have one chance at this.”
Gem jumped out of her chair and ran to the ship’s tubes.
• • •
“Lydia, hand me that spot-cutter.” Gibbs took it and made five cuts. He took the electric hand wrench and the ten pins came spinning out. He lifted the huge package and moved it slowly out of the penetrator’s nose. Lydia assisted him and it cleared the penetrator’s shell. “Micah, we’re ready to take this to the floor. Start adding gravity.”
They held on to the explosive package and they slowly dropped to the floor. Just before they touched the floor, Micah reduced the gravity and they barely touched. Gibbs took a metal cable and drilled one end into the floor, wrapped it over the package and drilled the other end. “Micah, shut off gravity; we’re jumping to the nose.”
They felt the small gravity field disappear and they looked up and jumped. Gibbs took Lydia’s hand and he grabbed the open nose as they moved past it. He pulled himself in and held on to Lydia as she worked her way into the penetrator. Gibbs put a suction device on the nose cone’s door and pulled it shut. It snapped into place and he pulled Lydia to the back of the nose cone and leaned back. He said, “Notify the Admiral we’re ready.”
“A strange looking ship has just arrived and I think they use it to enter captured vessels. I have determined a path out of here and I’ve sent it to the Admiral. I’ll launch you in forty seconds.”
“I’m sorry, Micah.”
“I’m still with you. Just get us to safety.”
“I’m forced to depend on the Admiral to make that happen.”
“I can’t think of anyone better to do it.”
Gibbs smiled, “You’re right, Micah.”
“Twenty seconds to launch; guns will start firing in ten seconds.”
• • •
The Grillen Admiral watched the penetration ship move toward the giant white ship, when suddenly, a massive globe of small shards shot out of its hull and began hitting the Grey Ships in the screen surrounding it. The Grey Ships began exploding and a bright flash shot away from the stricken ship. “What was that?”
“It is one of their heavy missiles. It missed all of our ships.”
He wondered how it could have missed at such close range and then he knew; it was an escape pod. He lifted his communicator to order a chase of the missile but never managed to issue the order. Right behind the plastic shells, Micah launched every penetrator in his tubes and targeted three of them on the Admiral’s vessel. It exploded into a massive fire ball just before the Union Ship overloaded its reactors and blew up in an explosion that was seen in daylight on the planet below. The shock wave blew out into the Grillen Defense Fleet scattering them.
• • •
Shane entered normal space and accelerated to half the speed of light and stared at his display for the approaching penetrator. He saw it and it was coming at an incredible velocity. He pushed the thruster control forward and the Jukebox leaped forward at its maximum acceleration. The blip on his display continued to move closer but the closing speed had been greatly reduced. He continued t
o accelerate and saw the penetrator pull even with his ship. He moved over and the penetrator moved inside the gravity field around his ship, “Gem, pull them in.” Shane kept the penetrator even with the landing bay and saw it disappear below the bridge.
“They’re in.”
Arvolo was pacing the Jukebox waiting for the Grillen pursuit to arrive but they never appeared. He shrugged and said, “Good work, Captain. Get out of here.”
The two huge ships shimmered for a moment and disappeared.
The Grillen on the planet never saw the two hundred objects that entered the planet’s atmosphere on the night side and disappear. The Madators were on the ground by the time the shockwave spent itself in the upper atmosphere on the other side of the planet. Blacky glided into a forest on the daylight side and saw the bright flash in the sky. He hoped his friend had made it out safely. He looked across a field and saw the Grillen construction facility. He smiled and waited for nightfall. He began to hear the ultrahigh frequency hoots from his team members as they arrived. All of them had made it and his smile grew larger; it wouldn’t be long before the fun began.
• • •
Mumbles glided in toward the construction facility and saw that it was still under construction. His team of eight Madators had been divided into four teams of two for each site and he wondered when Hardhead was going to arrive. He thought about the name given to him by Ringie and didn’t really like it.
But, he had great difficulty speaking the language used in the Union, so he guessed he deserved it. He hoped Hardhead wouldn’t be so stubborn about the plan that he wasn’t given any freedom. He deserved his name as well. He stayed in the dirt and after another ten minutes he heard the high frequency hoot of Hardhead. He answered and the huge Madator flew in and landed next to him. “What have you seen?”