by Saxon Andrew
• • •
“Pam, break it off.”
“We’re four seconds out.”
“BREAK IT OFF!” Pam took manual control of the ship and turned the steering wheel hard right. She looked at her scanner and saw the backside missiles exploding in the distance. She then saw a giant white wave approaching them from the direction of the station. She turned as disintegrator beams began flashing past them. She pushed the thrusters fully forward and felt the ship rock as it was hit by multiple disintegrator beams. The wave moved slightly closer and the ship rocked violently before the distance began opening up. She began weaving but the ship was still being hit. In five seconds, they were out of range of the Traugh Disintegrators. “Break left, we have another wave coming in from the right.”
Pam was amazed at the calmness in Sparky’s voice as he began launching missiles at the incoming Traugh Fleet. Pam felt the ship rock again as Sparky yelled, “They’re expecting you to go vertical. Dive toward the galaxy.”
Pam pushed the steering wheel forward and the ship’s bow thrusters pushed the bow down. She glanced at the main monitor on the front wall and saw space above and around them was solid white. The only opening was toward the galaxy and she piled on the speed. It took more than two hours to shake the last pursuer and she collapsed back in her chair. She was shaking as Sparky released his harness and rushed to her chair. He put his arms around her and held her as she cried, “I almost didn’t do it.”
“But you did. And we’re still alive because of it.”
“I didn’t see them.”
“You were too focused on the attack to hear the sonic scanners roaring at the highest level I’ve ever heard. I knew they were coming in huge numbers to surround us.”
Pam put her head on his shoulder and cried with the release of her fear. He held her tightly and said, “I’m taking us to one of our hideouts. We need to discuss this.”
Pam nodded and moved to Sparky’s chair on weak knees. She sat down and he went to her chair and flew the ship away. “How…how did, did they know where…”
“We attacked three stations that were close together. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that we were headed toward the next closest station. That’s where they sent their fleets. I heard the sonic scanner through my helmet. That’s the only thing that saved us from certain death.” Sparky said, “Query. Have we sustained any damage to the ship?”
“Three disintegrators on the rear have been melted.”
“Any damage to the hull?”
“A fifty yard patch was scorched when the force field weakened momentarily. The hull’s integrity has not been compromised.”
Sparky flew the ship toward a hideout but heard the sonic scanner three times and changed course. He shook his head and headed at full speed away from that sector. He didn’t hear the sonic scanner for an hour and he changed course into a huge planetary system. He moved the ship into orbit above a giant gas giant planet and moved into the planet’s upper atmosphere. He remained there and stayed in the chair as Pam regained her composure. “What are you doing?”
“I suspect the Traugh have sent every Warship that was in those massive waves out to search for us. If I’m right, it’s only a matter of time until we hear one of them. If we don’t hear anything within three hours, we’ll make a run for our closest hideout. If we do, I’m moving the ship down into this planet’s middle atmosphere.” Suddenly, the sonic scanner emitted a coarse sound over the wall speaker and Sparky turned the bow down and dove deeper into the planet’s atmosphere. He locked the ship in position and turned on the communications system.
It was impossible to make sense of all the conversations taking place but it was clear the entire Traugh inventory of warships were searching for them. Sparky looked at Pam, “They’ve left enough ships above their territory to make sure we don’t bolt for Andromeda. The others will search for us.”
“You don’t think they’ll find us here?”
“Query. How many gas giant planets are there in Traugh controlled space?”
“More than a billion.”
Sparky shrugged, “Even if they thought we were hiding in a gas giant, they’d never have time to search a third of them.”
“But we can’t go anywhere.”
“That’s true. But they can’t start building ships until they break off this search. They’ll need their fleets to defend their ship building facilities. We’ve managed to slow them down and that’s a success of sorts.”
Pam hung her head, “I’m exhausted.”
“Computer, notify me if you hear anything come in over the sonic scanner.”
“Order acknowledged.”
Sparky lifted Pam out of her chair and carried her off the bridge to her quarters. She held his hand as he turned to go, “Don’t leave. Stay with me.” Sparky nodded and went around the bed and lay down beside her. He rubbed her head and her eyes quickly closed. He continued to softly rub her head and thought about what had happened. He knew that the Traugh must have taken all the ships that were defending their home worlds to make the attack on them. The chances of a successful attack were now close to zero. Their speed would not save them if the Traugh sent enough ships to surround the area of space they were in. They were lucky that they didn’t seal off the space below their fleets. The Traugh expected them to make a break for Andromeda. Next time, there would not be an opening. He continued to rub Pam’s head and eventually closed his eyes.
The computer detected three ships on the sonic scanner but neither of them woke when the alarm sounded. The computer stopped sending alarms after the third went unanswered.
Chapter Twenty
The Supreme Council sat and stared at the Ultimate Leader. He pulled up the recordings of the destroyed ship building stations and played them for the nine Supreme Leaders and forced them to watch them in their entirety. At the end he looked around the room, “If just one of their ships can do this much damage, what could a fleet of them do?” The Leaders remained silent. “The time of profit taking is over. All of us are going to use our wealth to start building ships that can survive against the technology this ship is using.”
Wild Eyes looked around at the others and said, “Why have they only sent this one ship?”
“To determine our strength. They will be coming with fleets of ships in the future to destroy our civilization. It could be that they don’t have the necessary numbers to attack us yet and that is even more reason to start building up our fleets to meet them.”
“Do we have the technology to build the advanced ships you speak about?”
“Our scientists have found a way to increase the power of our reactors. The new ships we build will have four reactors instead of the two our current warships use. The test model is faster than any ship in our fleets and its disintegrators have more than six times the power and range of the older model.” The UL stared at them and sneered, “Or would you prefer to wait and take them on with the ships in your fleets? I will use my wealth to build this new ship and if you don’t join in the effort to build them, they will not be used to defend you.”
“What if our warriors refuse to contribute to this effort?”
“Their ships will be confiscated and they will die.”
“Where will we build these ships?”
“The new stations will be built in secret locations that will not be discussed in any communications. We will pull the ships from many of the conquered planets to defend them until they produce enough of the new ships to take over that responsibility. Now decide.”
The new Supreme Leaders looked at each other and Growler stood up, “Greatest Leader, I will turn over all my accumulated wealth to assist in the building of these new stations. I will also turn over my fleets to a central command that will use them for the betterment of all of us.”
The new Supreme Leaders knew that if the Ultimate Leader could dispose of the leaders they replaced, he could do the same with them. One by one they stood and promised their wealt
h and support to the new building projects. The UL looked at Growler, “You will go and supervise the building of our new warships. Contact us if you need anything. Do not discuss the location of these new projects on any channel.”
Growler nodded, “Yes, Greatest Leader. I will do as you order.”
The UL looked at the new leaders, “You will bring our pilots into line. Do not tolerate a moment of resistance from them. Contact me with our progress a week from now. Traugh Leaders stood and left the chamber. The UL looked at Growler, “I need you to stay with the new ships we build and use them to protect me should anyone turn on my rule.”
“I will do as you direct, Greatest Leader.” Growler went to his ship and left the home worlds to find sites for the new factories. They had to remain hidden from the Demon Warship. There was much to do.
• • •
Pam opened her eyes and looked around. She didn’t see Sparky and she sat up and rubbed her eyes. She went to the wall intercom, “Where are you?”
“I’m on the bridge.”
“On my way.” Pam walked through the portal and saw Sparky leaning back in his chair staring at the main viewport. Nothing was visible but the sand colored atmosphere blowing around the ship’s hull. “What’s up?”
Sparky looked at her and sighed, “We’re wasting our time staying here. It’ll be months before the Traugh stop their search.”
“What do you want to do?”
“We might as well go back to Earth and come back after some time has passed. Sitting in this planet’s atmosphere is boring.”
“How do we escape without being seen?”
“We don’t. We leave here at full speed and pick a path through their forces toward Andromeda. They’re scattered around Traugh Space looking for us and there’s no way they can gather enough ships in front of us to stop us.”
“Do you think the Prophet will stop us from coming back if we go home?”
“No, the fact we chose to go back will outweigh any concerns they might have. It will relieve some of their worry that we’re here to get ourselves killed.”
“Are we?”
Sparky looked at her, “Are we what?”
“Here to die?”
Sparky looked back out of the viewport and shrugged, “I wish I knew, Pam.”
Pam stood and stared at Sparky and after a long moment moved to her chair, “Ready to go home?”
Sparky leaned forward and pressed the button that activated his panel, “Try to fly by close enough for me to take a few shots at them as we pass.”
Pam smiled, “I will. We’ll tell them that we came back to refill our missile magazines and get the disintegrators and hull repaired.”
Sparky nodded and after a moment sat up straight. Pam saw his eyes and said, “What?”
Sparky shook his head, “Nothing.”
“I know you, Sparky; what?”
“I’m going to see if there’s a way for us to be able to launch every missile we have on board at one time.”
“Why?”
“We might need it to escape if we’re confronted by that many ships again.”
Pam pursed her lips, tilted her head, nodded, and said, “We could use them to blast a path through the Traugh formation.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
• • •
Pam turned the bow vertical and gently pushed the thruster control. The ship moved through the atmosphere until the ship arrived at the outer edge, where she ran a quick scan. “My, my there’s a lot of our friends out there.”
“They’re like bees looking for the bear that took their honey.”
“There is a gap in their positions but it’s on the side of Traugh Territory toward Earth.”
“We should avoid going that way, Pam.”
“Let’s stay here for a while. The situation is fluid and another gap should present itself soon enough.” Sparky nodded as Pam stood up and went to his chair. She sat down in his lap and activated display, “I can watch the scans from here.” Sparky smiled and put his arms around her.
• • •
Ninety minutes later, Sparky nodded toward the display, “There’s a gap directly above our current position.”
Pam opened her eyes and looked at the display, “There are still a lot of Traugh Warships in the area.”
“I want to see if we can take out some of them as they try to move in on us. We’ve pretty much run from every confrontation so far. I want to see if we can blast our way through them. I know my disintegrators have a much longer range than theirs.”
“Just how do you want me to do this?”
“Fly straight at them. I’m feeding the bulk of our reactor’s power to the forward disintegrators. I want to see if one of our maximum beams will vaporize their ships.”
“There has to be some debris.”
“Yes, but I think our force field will shrug off the small pieces.”
“I’m still going to try to avoid any ship you hit.”
“By all means, you should. But I want to see if we could just fly into their formation and blow a hole through it for us to escape.”
“Sparky, I’m not sure about this.”
“Pam, I’ll destroy any ship close enough for their disintegrators to hit us. We won’t have to worry about the ships to the side or behind us; we’ll fly by them and they won’t be able to catch us.”
Pam sighed and went to her chair. “Are you sure about this?”
“If we intend to launch any more attacks, we have to see if we can escape. This is the only way to do it.”
“What if I launch missiles in front of us?”
“Not this time. Let’s see if we can do it only using our disintegrators.”
Pam shrugged and took manual control of the stardrive. “Going to full speed in three, two, one, now!”
The ship went to full speed and moved out of the planetary system where it had been hiding in three seconds. It turned vertical and Pam watched the Traugh Warships above Traugh Space suddenly start moving to block her path. She shook her head, they were going to arrive before she could pass their ranks. She bore down on the closest and saw brilliant beams leave her ship and start hitting them as they tried to block her course. The Traugh Warships blew apart in brilliant flashes as the powerful disintegrator beams hit and released the bonds holding their ships together. Pam moved slightly right as more Traugh Warships arrived high above them and began diving on them. She gritted her teeth and held the ship on course as Sparky played his weapon panel like a virtuoso. Some of the Traugh Warships were hit by three beams and others by just one as Sparky used his helmet to designate targets. The entire battle was being fought faster than light as every ship was inside their stardrives.
Pam found that she didn’t have to swerve to avoid the destroyed Traugh Ships directly in her path. Sparky was hitting them with three or more disintegrators and there wasn’t much left but a vapor cloud after they were hit. Soon, the Traugh in front of them began fleeing out of their path. Ten minutes later, they left the Milky Way behind.
“YOU ARE INCREDIBLE!!!”
“Thanks, Pam. However, next time we try this we’re going to have to do it with fully fueled reactors.”
Pam looked at the reactor’s status on her console and her eyes went wide, “We’re down to one quarter power.”
“We started at three quarters. The disintegrators really sucked the power during the fight.”
“We have enough to get home. We’ll ask them about how to resolve this problem when we arrive.”
Sparky nodded and leaned back in his chair. He glanced at Pam and hoped she’d forgive him for what he was going to do. Pam turned the ship back toward the Milky Way an hour later and he pressed the communicator, “This is Earth One. We are returning for repairs. We’ll arrive in seventy minutes.”
• • •
The communication was relayed to Andres and he immediately boarded a ship in India and left for Japan. If the Scout’s ship was damaged he
needed to see what did it. He arrived and notified the base to expect the ship. He got in a car and left for the facility’s landing pads. He watched the ship come down from high orbit and didn’t see any damage. When the ship landed and the force field went off, he saw the scorched section on the rear. He shook his head and ran toward the ramp. As he ran into the ship he saw the rear disintegrators were melted. What had these two done to cause that much damage?
• • •
A week later, Andres, Essay, Kam, and Admiral Whitehall watched the recording of the massive Traugh Fleets firing on the fleeing Earth Warship. Jason started shaking his head and looked at Pam and Sparky, “I’m really surprised you survived.”
Andres tilted his head, “The burned section of the hull was down to a tenth of an inch. It would not have withstood another hit.”
Sparky shrugged, “As fate would have it, it didn’t take another hit. Is there anything you can do to help us if we get caught in that situation again?”
Everyone looked at Andres and he shook his head, “Not with the current ship’s configuration.”
Essay looked at him, “Can you change it?”
“Not if we want to get them back quickly.”
Sparky smiled, “There’s no need for us to rush back. We need to lay low until the Traugh return to normal operating procedures.”
Andres stared at the image of the hundreds of thousands of Traugh Warships moving in on the fleeing ship and shook his head, “If you find yourselves in that predicament again, I hope you activate the self-destruct button before your ship is destroyed.”