Bannis laughed. "You planning to put them all in hibernation?"
"Actually, we could do that and start moving them right now. Back on Earth they would just stay in the pod until we had housing and food ready to support them."
"Hmm. Interesting thought. It would certainly make our transport ships simpler to build. No support system for anyone but the crew."
"Don't even need them for the crew if we crew with bots. What's our trade-off in building the ship with support versus no support and pods?"
Bannis rubbed his fingers through the hair on the side of his head. "Hmm. Just don't see that as feasible. Even if we could ramp up to ten thousand units a day, that's still a hundred thousand days. Don't think we have that much time."
"So, realistically, how long before we get the people moved?"
"Realistically? I think we're talking three to five years."
Harris slumped in his chair. "I just don't see us having that kind of time. We're going to be attacked long before that. It could be by all three enemies at the same time if they decide they want to teach us a lesson."
"Your report said they had no way of reporting back what we hit them with."
"The Frizoid fleet, yes. And the fight at the end, yes to that too. But our first hit on the Crissen, where we took out Willen Monumon? You can bet all three sides sent data back to their bases on that one. They know we're fighting with gamma. My questions now have to be... are they taking their time adding in extra shielding before they return? Are they building more ships than we can take out? We don't have access to their space, so we don't know."
"Then maybe it's time we got access. We have plenty of Banshees. Start sending them out on the deep scout missions. Might take a couple months to hear back, but they'll bring us the data on anything they can find. Grab a thousand units and give them orders."
"I'll make that happen when I leave here." Harris shook his head. "Three years. I think that might just be a death sentence. Maybe we should divert all our energies back to defense for the time being. Maybe the President's battlestation is the way to go."
"Not for me to decide, Mr. Gruberg. I just make suggestions."
"I was never expecting to be on top of all this… the whole Human populace relying on my decisions. I'm a down-in-the-ditch or a door-to-door fighter, not a species leader."
Bannis Morgan smirked. "Well, somebody has to do it and I'm glad it's not me. Now go take what we just talked about and bounce it off Miss Freely. You claim she's the other half of your brain, right?"
"Sometimes she's the whole brain, Mr. Morgan. Thanks for your help here."
A run was made to the President's estate, where Tawn had been in a meeting with members of the senate intelligence committee. Several higher-ups from the DDI had joined in the questioning about decisions that had been made. Tawn came out rolling her eyes.
Harris chuckled. "That fun?"
"How'd I get stuck with that duty?"
"You said it yourself, you're the brains of this outfit. Were the questions that bad?"
"Every other question asked was filled with innuendo. It was like we were being questioned on our patriotism. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to leap from my chair to body-slam them. One asked if I still considered myself a Domicile citizen. What?"
Harris laughed. "And what was your answer?"
"Clenched fists and a red face. He quickly moved on to the next question... which wasn't much better."
"Yeah, well, they're politicians. Trying to protect the status quo is what they do. This move is threatening them in just about every way. Counties, districts, and cities go away, and with them the borders and political machines that run them. How many of them will get voted out of a job when all their constituents are people they've never done a thing for?"
"I guess. But if that's a plea for sympathy for them, it's not working."
"No plea, just stating the obvious reasons."
"What'd you learn from Morgan?"
"We're in deep trouble with the move. He went over some of the numbers for me and revealed what a huge job this really is. Easily a thousand times bigger than I had in my head. Anyway, he thinks it will take us three to five years to move everyone to Earth."
"That's a problem."
"That's what I said. I just sent out orders for another thousand Banshee scouts, by the way. They'll be heading out to begin patrols of the Frizoid, Burrell, and Crissen bases. Oh, and those ships have the interference emitters on them. They should be able to sit quietly and watch. Anything they bring back is better than the nothing we know right now."
It would be nice to know how the Frizoid send a message across that distance in an instant. We couldn't pull that off their ships?"
"We did, but we're missing the other end of that transmission. Morgan thinks that's where the real equipment lies. So we're stuck with flying around to deliver the message."
"What about the Burrell? How is it they send a message at ship's speed without having a ship?"
"They use a one-time delivery vehicle called a spear. Has its own wormhole generator to run a hop-drive. All very compact, and disposed of when it reaches the other end."
"How'd the Burrell on Gondol and Beckland send messages out?"
"The spear. It's just small and slow enough going up through the atmosphere that we didn't notice it. Morgan's engineers went back and looked at our logs once they knew what to look for. Sure enough, the smallest of signatures could be seen."
"We really are behind in the tech, aren't we?"
"Very behind. But we've managed so far. A lot of luck behind that managing, but I'll take it when we can get it."
Another month passed with no sign of an invasion. Seven hundred thousand bots were now working tirelessly on constructing defenses. The month that followed brought word of what was hoped would never come.
Bot 244357 blasted in a message. "Fifty-eight thousand Crissen ships are parked at the shipyards at Bonalee. They appear to be undergoing a retrofit. Possibly bridge shielding. One third of the ships have been completed. Estimate for the remainder is forty days from this message."
Harris frowned. "Shielding their bridge. Smart. The ships keep flying and keep shooting. Bad news for any troops or maintenance personnel, but the ships will stay in the fight."
Shortly after, a scout came in from Earth. Habitat for the first hundred thousand citizens was ready for occupancy. Farming was behind schedule. Another month would be required before food support for the hundred thousand was available. The next habitat availability was expected in two weeks.
Harris sat in his chair on the Bangor. "This is not going well."
Tawn said, "On a high note, Mr. Morgan thinks we're only a day or two away from a thousand Banshees a day. And we have at least one missile for each of those Crissen ships should they come our way. I asked Mr. Morgan if his team could analyze the data from that scout. Maybe something in there will tell us about the gamma shielding they're installing. Maybe it's not enough."
"Don't want to wager any lives on that. There has to be something we can do… something we're missing."
Tawn grabbed his arm. "I can't believe this hasn't occurred to any of us."
"What?"
Tawn grinned with excitement. "It's so obvious. We've been so worried about our defense, we've completely overlooked it."
"What? Don't leave me hanging like this."
"Offense."
"As in?"
"As in we take the fight to them. We go out and hit them at their base with as many gamma missiles as we can. Maybe we don't instantly kill those crews, but maybe we make them sick. Or maybe we catch them when they're in the dining hall and not on the bridge. Or maybe on the shipyard in some unshielded area."
"That might have some possibilities."
"Some? We have the Banshees sitting and waiting to deliver a devastating blow. And as a bonus we send a scout to the Burrell to tell them what's about to happen. If we could talk them into sending a fleet, they could wipe
out that base and those ships. I'd say send our own, but I don't want to leave us undefended. This could be huge. Maybe the biggest thing I've thought of."
Harris chuckled. "I'll admit it's got promise, but let's run it by a few people first."
"Let's go do that now. We need to catch them before they leave that base, while they're sitting at a low alert level."
Tawn could hardly contain her enthusiasm as the Bangor sped toward the Retreat. The colonel's team kicked the idea around for several hours without identifying a downside. If the Crissen fleet had departed for Human space, they would be intercepted on the way. A second run was made to Midelon, where a consultation was done with Idiot and the archives. Again, no downside was identified. The President gave his wholehearted approval.
Three weeks later a Banshee scout returned from the reclaimed Burrell colony of Zorn. The Burrell wanted in on the attack. The Bangor was flown to Gianus, where the Human fleet was stationed. The twenty-six thousand Banshees carrying sixty thousand gamma missiles were brought online. At the twenty-eight thousand times light-speed average for the hop-drives, the Crissen base was ten days’ travel.
Tawn's continued excitement during the entire journey only served to irritate Harris. As the Crissen world of Bonalee finally showed on the nav display as a speck of light, Harris let out a sigh of relief. The fleet slowed as they approached, activating their localized interference emitters.
Tawn flipped away at the display in front of her. "I have ships. All of them!"
"Please contain yourself."
"This is so going to work."
"Well, they are parked in a tight bunch. Miss Freely, you might just be right. This might be your biggest idea."
"Another five minutes and we launch those missiles and park. Wait... I have a Crissen ship to our left. Looks like a scout. Logs don't show any transmissions and it appears to still be on the same course, moving away from us slightly."
"If this works," said Harris, "it will be an epic victory. Definitely one for the history books. Heck, they might even put up statues of Tawn Freely everywhere."
"Let's not offend the people, now."
Harris chuckled. "If we pull this off, they could all be fifty meters tall and show you chowing down on a plate of bogler steaks and nobody would be offended."
"A fifty-meter-tall me? You of all people would be offended by that?"
"Offended? Never. Irritated, maybe."
Tawn pressed the button that sent the command to the sixty thousand missiles they had brought with them. All broke toward the parked fleet at once. Only seconds before the detonation occurred, an alert sounded from the Crissen scout. It was too late, but the alarm was raised for over forty thousand Burrell warships that had just come through a multitude of wormholes.
The display lit up as the missiles all detonated at the same instant. Two seconds later, immense waves of gamma radiation swept through the fleet, through the entire shipyard structure, and then continued down to the surface of the planet.
As the Burrell ships raced in, only a dozen of the Crissen defenders came out to meet them. Tawn sat with her mouth open; Harris watched in awe, as the destructive fire released by the incoming Burrell fleet annihilated the defenders. A minute later, the dark space around Bonalee lit up with flashes of fire and explosions from hundreds of thousands of laser cannons.
An hour later, Harris let out a sigh. "Wow, that was unbelievably successful. Scratch the Crissen from being a problem anytime soon. And the Burrell, they'll be too busy keeping up the pressure from this fight to bother us for some time. Looks like all we have to worry about now is the Frizoid."
"And we have fifty-five thousand of their ships that say they shouldn't be bothering us."
"Along with our Banshees."
"Of course."
The carnage at Bonalee ran on for another hour before word came up from the surface of a complete surrender. The Bangor and her victorious automated fleet turned for home.
— Chapter 20 —
* * *
Word of their arrival at Domicile spread rapidly. The President summoned the two Biomarines to his office, where heaps of praise was followed by a rush to get Tawn in front of a bevy of reporters. The barrage of questions was endless, and the faces asking all had wide grins.
An imminent threat to Humanity had been removed without the loss of a single life or ship. Everyone had come home. The celebrations at the presidential estate lasted well into the evening. Only after repeated protests was the new Hero of Humanity allowed to cut out and leave.
"What an overblown mess."
Harris chuckled. "Not so easy being the hero, is it?"
"Wasn't looking for it. Just wanted to eliminate the threat."
"And humble. People will absolutely love Biomarines for a couple months now. Other than politicians wanting to use you for photo-ops, your moment of fame will end soon enough."
"Let's hope so. I'm just not much of a camera person."
The following day, they made a visit to Bannis Morgan's office.
"Ah, here she is. The Hero of Humanity."
Tawn sighed. "Already heard that more times than I ever wanted. How about we talk about something else? Like status of our builds or something?"
"OK. Let's talk missiles. Our inventory is down to about five thousand. I've shifted priorities to emphasize missile production over everything else. Those are still our weapon of choice at the moment."
Harris said, "That's changing. The Crissen were adding bridge shielding. We got lucky with our timing out there, as the ships were all parked and crews were evidently not on their bridges, where the shielding was. A handful of warships still managed to come out to fight after we hammered them with gamma, so I have to believe the shielding worked. I couldn't fathom the Frizoid and Burrell not doing something similar."
"The Burrell, didn't they agree to leave us alone if their efforts at Bonalee paid off?"
"They did. But their word is only good as long as they keep it. I have to think if they believed taking us again was to their advantage, they'd do it without hesitation. We may have a reprieve at the moment because they're busy with the Crissen."
"And no word from the Frizoid?"
"We're a little concerned over that," Tawn replied. "Several of our scouts from their direction have failed to report in."
"Send out more."
"We just did. Will be a month before we know anything though. How's the station looking?"
"Shielding tested out as expected. Idiot provided designs and instructions for updates to our current fleet of Banshees and Frizoid cruisers. I have our main shipyard converting over to make those updates. It will take at least three months to retrofit them all. And the station should have its shielding up and working in about two weeks."
"Might be time to bring over Idiot and his archive," Harris said. "I’ll feel better when it's off that planet. Without the wormhole generators there, it's become almost impossible to defend. Shame too. What an asset that place has been."
Tawn nodded. "We'd all be working for Bax and Croft right now without it."
The light conversation continued for half an hour before Bannis insisted he must get back to work. There were meetings to attend and production to coordinate. The power duo returned to the Bangor.
"Check up on Alex?" Harris asked.
"Sounds good to me."
A run out to Gianus found Alex hard at work in his lab.
"What you working over now, Doc?"
"The hop-drives. I want to believe there’s much more to be had from them. Imagine if we could double our speed again. What would that mean for us all?"
"Uh, we could move around twice as fast?"
"Precisely. Time for transport trips to Earth would be under two weeks for us."
Tawn said, "I was just about to ask if there's been any progress on the overall move. What's our status on Earth?"
"Work has begun on another three habitats. Each houses a hundred thousand individuals."
; Harris scowled. "So we need ten thousand of those units?"
"Correct. We expect to double our production of them every week for the next five weeks. Should have the final unit complete in just over a year."
"A year is not so good, Doc. We're almost guaranteed to be attacked between now and then."
"That I can't help you with. We're building these as fast as we can. We've already pulled our timeline in from five years to three, to almost one. How goes the transportation side of things?"
"Still slow to produce the numbers we need. Our defense is taking most of our resources. Any word on the farms at Earth?"
"Twenty-six field complexes are now being cleared. Soil tests indicate fertile ground. However, we're finding issues. I mentioned bees earlier. We’ve begun re-population of those, but there are also worms, birds, small mammals, lizards and other reptiles—a whole host of species—that are needed for a sustainable growing environment. Earth is rich in plant life that doesn't require those things. Food crops are very different."
"Aren't some of those pests?"
"They are, but they're needed to keep other animal and insect populations in control. Such as the plague of mosquitoes that inhabit most areas. They are of no benefit to the plants, but they are important to the bird population, which help control other insects. It's all an extremely complex system. And the loss of any single species would not cause a collapse, but it might just cause it to not work as efficiently."
Tawn said, "Sounds like a little too much fun, Doc."
"Idiot and the archive has been a big help at identifying which species we need to reintroduce first."
"Hey, if you go to Beckland or Gondol, they have those huge storage facilities for that sort of thing. Maybe the makeup they use would be useful?"
Alex smiled. "Astute thinking, Miss Freely. We have already examined the content of those facilities. They do indeed strike a nice balance, or will so when the time comes for their use on those planets."
"So the habitats should be ready for us all in just over a year. What about the farms?"
ARMS For Eternity: (Book 8) Page 18