by Saxon Andrew
“The assignments are done.”
Gibbs smiled and lifted his communicator, “We are jumping in ten minutes. Good luck and make the Union proud.”
• • •
Dat and Shane watched the probe’s data coming in and saw Gibbs had chosen to use a box for each of the Servant formations. “That’s how I’d do it.”
Shane heard Dat and said, “I would have used four.”
“Why?”
“The ships in those eight Servant Fleets are accustomed to working together. By forcing two of them into a box, you double the number of ships to hit them and they’ll be forced to try and work together. I don’t think they could pull it off fast enough.”
“That’s a good rationale.”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have used four boxes so that they overlapped around the planet. I would start the weave and then start them rotating around the planet as they continued.”
“That’s a difficult formation to get out of while you’re under attack.”
“Gibbs is not going to hang around for the follow up.”
Shane did a double take, “What!?!”
Dat continued to watch the probe’s data come in and said, “This first attack is a learning experience. We’re doing it to collect information about what we’re going to have to face. We know nothing about how the Servants will respond, how many ships will be sent, what formations they’ll arrive in, and how long it will take them to get here. We’ll attack the Servant Warships here and jump away. We’ll observe what happens next and determine our tactics on what we learn.”
“Have you told Gibbs we’re not going in and you’re pulling him out?”
“No, I’m just going to press the escape button as soon as he finishes with the locals.”
Shane shook his head, “I’m glad he went first. This would probably make me angry at being pulled out before the main dance.”
“I suspect you would be; however, you might feel differently once you see the follow up.”
Shane stared at Dat, “You think it’s going to surprise us?”
“I have no idea; that’s the nature of a surprise.”
Shane nodded, “They just jumped, Sir.”
“Well sit back and enjoy the view. This should prove to be interesting.”
• • •
The Servant Detection Specialist sent another scan out into the planet’s solar system for what seemed like the millionth time and stared at the return. The Weapon’s leader saw his expression, “Maybe we’ll be sent on the next crop collection.”
The Specialist leaned back on his back legs, “Everyone told me, ‘Join the Fleets; you’ll see the galaxy, explore new places, eat interesting foods’…they were so wrong! This job is mind numbingly boring.”
The Leader nodded, “When I first arrived on board, I thought the planet below us was beautiful. The ship was amazing and all the others on board were the most interesting beings I’ve ever met. Now I hate looking at that planet and I can tell you the names of all the children of everyone on this bucket of bolts. No one has ever attacked one of our Nobility Planets; I would think they could find a better use of our time.”
“You know why we’re really here.”
The Leader swiveled his head, “We’re nothing more than a status symbol.” The Specialist was surprised the Weapon’s Leader saw it. “The Nobility seems to gain status by the number of Warships used to defend their planets. It’s stupidity at its finest.”
“What’s really dumb is that new ships are constantly being built to increase the numbers around the planet but keeping the others serviced, repaired, and up to date is ignored.”
The Leader nodded, “Tell me about it; I’ve ordered a replacement generator for the portside fire control computer six months ago and haven’t received it yet. And I’m not the only one; my counterparts on most of the other ships say they have major problems that have been ignored.”
“Well, fortunately, scanners are repaired instantly; no one wants a surprise visit from the higher ranking Lords.”
“Much less an enemy ship.”
The Specialist swiveled his head, “I’d almost welcome a fight to relieve this mind killing boredom.”
“Me, too.”
The Specialist heard his panel beep and he sat up straight, “I have a transmission taking place.”
“Where!?!”
“It was directly above the planet…but…now it’s below the planet.”
The Specialist looked at the Weapon’s Leader and the Leader hit the Attack Warning button. The crew of the huge warship started moving to their duty stations thinking another drill was taking place. They began moving at full speed when the Weapon’s Leader announced, “We’ve detected a foreign transmission next to the planet. This is not a drill.”
The giant warship barely had time to power its force field as the Scanner Specialist yelled over the communication’s circuit, “THOUSANDS OF JUMP SIGNATURES…WE’RE BEING ATTACKED!!!”
• • •
Unfortunately, on many of the Servant Warships, their Scanning Specialists were not at their posts. They had worked out a rotation between their ships to scan for anything coming into the system and the first warning they had was a general fleet communication to go to Attack Status. For those ships, it was too late and fatal.
• • •
Captain Lee Jennings was lying prone on the couch he had built next to his panel. He found it much easier to lie down to put hands on the steering paddles where he could keep the three displays, as well as the paddles, directly in front of him at eye level. The center display showed his tactical position; the left display showed the distance to the closest object in his ship’s path; the right displayed an overall view of the area around the ship. Lee arrived with the other ships assigned to his box and immediately ordered weapons free. He saw a Servant Major Battleship directly to the port side and accelerated past it. He did not concern himself with the firing on the enemy vessel, that was up to his crew manning the beams and missile controls. A huge explosion appeared in the corner of his eye on the right display; he knew it had to be the Servant Battleship. It didn’t even have its force field energized. He stared at the closest object in his attack vector and pushed the jump paddle and briefly skipped into the barrier. He came out between two Huge Servant Warships and swerved between them. He saw the next object and immediately skipped into the barrier again. He wasn’t going to linger and allow the two ships time to fire on him. If his weapons didn’t kill the ship, another Jukebox could do the job as they passed.
He concentrated on finding a path through his assigned vector and forgot about everything else. His path had numerous objects ahead of him and he skipped ahead and emerged long enough for his crew to fire. He forgot about everything else except getting through to the other side of the box.
He looked and saw a larger blip on the left display and knew there had to be numerous enemy ships ahead of him. He spoke and the communication system transmitted his voice to the ship, “We’re approaching a large group of Servant Warships. I’m going under them and will only be in normal space for a moment; fire all the top side penetrators the instant we emerge into normal space. You won’t have time to target the beams. Emergence in three, two, one…”
• • •
Fifty Servant Warships assigned to defend the Fleet Commander were being hit from all sides. The number of jump signatures around them had overwhelmed their systems and the weapons had to be fired manually. The Servants manning the beams decided to only fire at jump signatures close to their group and saw one immediately appear under them. The Beam Operators moved their beams as quickly as possible at the target but it disappeared before they could fire. They did see twenty huge missiles erupt out of the jump signature and immediately disappear as they accelerated into their formation. Ten of the giant Bronze Warships exploded as three more ships entered normal space and launched more missiles at them. The last Union Ship to fire on the fo
rmation made the mistake of staying in normal space longer than a second and it was hit by more than two hundred main beams from the surviving Servant ships. The Jukebox’s force fields held for a moment and then the huge ship exploded in the center causing it to beak in half. The Servant Fleet Commander saw the explosion, “Move us closer to that ship and start scanning it. We need to find out who they are.”
The Weave had passed the Commander’s location and he had his beam platforms on the giant ship’s hull start hitting at any beams still being fired by the damaged Union Ship. Soon, no beams were being fired and the fires were starting to spread on board the stricken vessel.
“Get some armored shuttles over and collect information. All ships stand close by and give the shuttles fire support.”
Ten Shuttles carrying ten armored Servant Warriors each began moving toward the drifting Union Warship. They moved toward a huge hole blown into the White Ship’s hull and prepared to enter.
Fifty decks down next to the black matter reactors, the computer used the optical cameras on the hull to see the Servant Shuttles approaching. It looked at the area around the ship and saw there were no Union Ships close by. It determined there was no escape and it activated the self-destruct module. The ensuing blast rocked space around the Union Ship and blew it into gas. The blast roared out and the shock wave blasted through the force fields of fifteen Servant Battleships surrounding the White Ship. Twelve others were blow away by the blast like leaves in a tornado. There were numerous injuries on the surviving Servant Warships, but it really didn’t make a difference. The radiation particles created with the destruction of a black matter reactor paled in comparison to an atomic explosion. The wave of radiation blew through the force fields of any ship within forty miles of the blast site giving the Servant Ships a lethal dose of radiation. It was so severe that the ships’ hulls were radioactive. The crews died instantly instead of lingering for days with normal radiation poisoning and the Servants discovered that it was impossible to approach the ships without endangering the rescuers. The radiated ships were towed and dropped on a trajectory toward the systems’ star. They glowed from the level of radioactivity in them.
Fifteen Union Ships were killed or damaged beyond repair during the attack; all of them exploded, causing further damage to the Servant Warships that survived the attack. After the first ten exploded, Servant Warships flew away from the five remaining Union ships and blasted them from long distance. The five took the fire for an hour before they detonated in self-destructive blasts.
• • •
Gibbs saw his twelve boxes complete their runs and started to order another attack when his ship suddenly jumped away from the planet. He looked at his panel and saw that the escape circuit had been activated. “What the…”
“Admiral, have your ships complete their escape trajectories?”
“Why did you pull us out, Sir!?!”
“I want you to answer that question when we reassemble.”
Gibbs was angry; the attack was going according to plan. He had a few words for Arvolo, but first his ship had to go through the fifty escape jumps. He continued to watch the data being sent by the probe and, by the time he arrived at the assembly coordinates, he was able to answer Arvolo’s question.
• • •
Only twenty thousand Servant Warships survived the Union attack. One of them was the ship that had detected the transmission and went to Attack Stations just before the attack began. The jump officer on board saw the jump signatures appearing around the ship and he immediately jumped the ship away from the planet. He was later executed for his cowardice but the ship survived because of it. They arrived close to the planet’s largest moon and had a perfect seat to watch the destruction of the Servant Defense Fleet and the facilities on the planet. Bad luck plagued the Servants during the first attack; the device that controlled the recording capability of the ship’s scanners failed and there has been no record of the attack. The only information on what happened was what the crew on the ship was able to see. Watching the battle without a means of slowing it down, where it could be analyzed, was no help to the reinforcements that arrived ten minutes after the attacking ships disappeared. They all agreed that hundreds of thousands of ships appeared and began jumping in an unorganized fashion, attacking any ship they could find. The boxes and weave were lost in the massive movements of that many ships occupying the space above the planet.
• • •
The Lord commanding the twenty million reinforcing Servant Ships that jumped in slammed his rear leg on the floor of his ship and dented the metal. The only ship that had a clear view of the attack had equipment failure. When he discovered that most of the ships in the Minor Lord’s defense fleet had various problems, he ordered a shuttle to the planet to arrest the Minor Lord ruling it. It was wasted effort; the Minor Lord’s residence was one of the targets the Union had chosen for a mini-penetrator. Even finding a small piece of the Lord in the five mile wide crater was going to be next to impossible.
“I want all the data collected by the survivors and sent to my ship.”
“Yes Lord.”
Twenty minutes later the other three support fleets arrived and the Servant Fleet Leader sneered at them. Big help they would have been if the enemy was still around.
He looked at his panel and saw the Senior Advisor on it. He didn’t like seeing his father after the catastrophe but straightened up and began answering his questions. Most of his answers were, “I don’t know.”
• • •
Dat saw Gibbs’ Fleet arrive and he activated his communicator and linked with the computers that issued assignments to Gibbs’ ships, “How many ships were lost?”
“Fifteen were damaged beyond the ability to escape.”
Dat looked over at the Scanning Officer, “I want all the recordings from the probe on those fifteen ships.” The officer nodded and Dat heard, “One of the ships destroyed was Rear Admiral Thebault’s Flagship.”
Dat thought for a moment, “What ship in the Rear Admiral’s fleet made the most kills?”
“Captain Jennings.”
“Patch me through to his ship.”
Dat watched his display and saw Jennings still lying on his couch, staring at his three displays. Dat moved his head back and said, “Captain, what sort of device are you using?”
Lee saw Admiral Arvolo on his panel and said, “I’ve modified my command chair so I can better track what’s going on around my ship, Sir.”
Arvolo saw the three displays and how Lee had his hands on the ship’s flight paddles. He shook his head and said, “You are promoted to Rear Admiral to replace Admiral Thebault. I commend you and your crew for your outstanding efficiency and I want you to send a description of your new chair to Admiral Gibbs immediately.”
“Yes Sir. And thank you, Sir.”
Dat ended the connection and linked with the combat computers, “I want an analysis of the enemy fleet that arrived after our ships left.”
“We’re working on it now.”
“Get it to me as quickly as possible.”
Dat contacted Gibbs, “Admiral, I want you to send your ships to their home port and have the armaments they used replaced.”
“We won’t be going back in, Sir?”
“Would you?”
“No Sir; and thank you for pulling the plug.”
Dat smiled, “Send your ship with your fleet, but I want you take a shuttle and come here for a meeting with my Senior Staff.”
“I’ll issue the orders and leave immediately.”
“Make sure you have the ships you lost replaced. I’ve promoted a Captain Jennings to replace Admiral Thebault; he’s sending you a diagram of a chair he designed to replace the standard command chair. Please bring it with you to the meeting along with your new Admiral.”
“My communication’s officer tells me he has the diagram. I’ll go by and pick up Jennings on the way to your ship, Sir.”
“Gibbs, his ship was the most
efficient in the attack.”
“Sir, he’s been on my shortlist to promote. You have made a great choice.”
“Thanks Gibbs. I would ordinarily allow you to make your own promotions but we need to find leaders that flourish in our new structure.”
“There is no need to apologize, Sir.”
Dat ended the connection and stared at the probe’s data stream. Twenty million Servant warships had jumped in ten minutes after the attack started; that response was going to change how they operated. Sixty million more appeared twenty minutes later and he shook his head as he waited for his Admirals to arrive.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Supreme Lord looked at his Advisor and almost killed him. If he had another child anywhere near as smart as the Advisor, he would have done it to make an example of him; he could not abide with incompetence. “You will have all the other defense fleets investigated and take action on any nobility that has not kept their ships operational!”
“I’ve already issued the orders and forty six Minor Lords have been executed. Their replacements understand their task to prepare their ships.”
“Where did those ships come from?”
The Advisor knew his life was hanging by a thread but he also knew he had to tell his father the truth, “We have no record of those ships in any of our databases.” The Supreme Lord scowled, but the Advisor continued without pausing, “What we do know is that they have extremely powerful force fields and missiles that are beyond any we have ever recorded. I have to believe that they are from the same species that has attacked our planets with the Violet and Yellow colored ships.”
“And just why would you make that guess?”
The Advisor heard the sarcasm in his father’s voice and said, “They used the same missiles the Violet and Yellow ships used to destroy the defense satellites.” The Lord was surprised by the Advisor’s statement. “My specialists believe that the ships used to invade the slave planets were an older model they no longer use. They were simply throw-away ships. The ships used in this last attack are their most advanced vessel.” The Lord looked down at his most competent child and felt his anger subside. The Advisor saw his father’s anger start to dissipate and said, “There is another issue in that we were only able to launch one of our support fleets to the attacked planet. It has been so long since your domain has faced an outside force that our fleets have lost their edge. I have executed the officers and their direct subordinates commanding the fleets that were unable to immediately go and have replaced them with commanders that will whip their fleets into shape.”