by Saxon Andrew
• • •
“Pat, it appears every defensive structure on that continent where the Legend is located has been obliterated. The Legends’ residence is still intact but the ground disruptors are gone.”
“The force field around the residence is incredible to withstand that blast, Piper.”
“I don’t see anything near the planet to stop you from going in.”
Pat slid out of Piper’s hull and took a quick look at the planet below them. Piper was right. “I’ll be gone for just a few moments; I’ll contact you for pickup shortly.” Pat moved down to the planet’s surface in an instant. He went through the force field and arrived inside the Elder’s main chamber a second later. He saw the Legend Elder at his control boards and smiled, “Hey, take a break!”
The Elder screamed as Pat extended his field and shocked it. The Elder collapsed to the floor. The Elder’s fear was paralyzing and Pat thought to it, “Will you shut up with the screaming. I’m not going to kill you if you shut the hell up!” The Legends’ screams abruptly ended. It lay on the floor quivering. Pat decided killing him wasn’t worth it. This Elder’s mind was frozen by its fear. He mentally shrugged and thought, “It has been brought to my attention that you have been planning to come to my domain without permission. I came here to let you know that is not something you, or any of those like you, should do. I’ll let you live this time but next time I will kill you. If I see you building another ship to invade, it will be the last thing you do.” The Legend continued to shake on the floor and Pat left the giant chamber and called in Piper. Piper flashed in and Pat moved inside the silver ship’s hull as it flashed back into the barrier and disappeared.
“Did you kill it?”
“No, killing it would waste him. I believe his fear will do more benefit than just ending its life.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Pat, if you have an enemy by the throat, you should remove it. Especially a species like this one.”
“If this doesn’t work out, I’ll kill the next one.”
• • •
Michael pressed a button on his console, “Averel.”
“Yes Sir.”
“I want the recordings of this battle collected and have Fleet Intelligence prepared to deliver a presentation of what happened in my office in the morning. Ask Luke if he’ll lead the presentation.”
“Yes Sir.”
“Do we have an estimate of casualties?”
“We lost a little more than six thousand ships, Sir.”
Michael shook his head, “That many?”
“Sir, we were outnumbered twenty to one. Most of the losses happened at the point of each fleet’s attack. Blowing a path through that many ships proved to be much more difficult than we anticipated. Unfortunately, all of our damaged ships that weren’t able to escape into the barrier were destroyed when the target went up.”
“What about enemy ship losses?”
“Twenty thousand in the fight to break through and another half of a million when the target exploded. The blast killed far more of the Legend’s warships than our ships.”
“I want the Senior Admirals there in the morning to view the presentation.”
“Yes Sir. I’ll notify them now.”
“Where to Michael?”
“Angelo, take me to my quarters. I need some down time.” He thought about Hawaii but knew he should stay near Operations in the event Intelligence needed him. He sighed and shook his head at the loss of freedom with his new position. The waves would have to wait for this to war to end before he could feel the freedom of riding a really large wave.
Chapter Three
Rear Admiral Jenkins finished his presentation the next morning and the Admirals gathered in the room were silent. Michael knew they were all thinking about the ramifications of the attack and he decided to use a technique to get them to share what they were thinking. “I want all of you to pair up and discuss with each other what you learned from watching this recording. Be prepared to share your findings with the group. Feel free to have more than three in a group but I want your findings collected as quickly as possible.”
Michael knew the Senior Admirals had no problem expressing their thoughts but many of the new Admirals were less likely to speak out. Getting them to discuss their observations with another officer made it easier to get out what they thought. Having another support your findings removed a lot of their reluctance.
After forty minutes, Michael said, “All of you on the left side of the room, compare what you’ve determined and make a list of the things all of you have in common. I also want a second list of items that no other group listed. The right side of the room will do the same.”
The two groups circled their chairs and though the initial discussion began slowly, it quickly picked up speed as they saw that many of them agreed on most of their findings. Luke looked at Michael, “This is a clever idea. Where did you come up with it?”
“It was a process that was once used on Earth in adult education.”
“That doesn’t answer my question?”
“I looked up everything I could find in our databases on leadership and this process was included in an instructional module produced by an organization that was located in Seattle, Washington before Earth’s destruction. I liked the idea and wondered if it would work with this many flag officers in one meeting. It would take a week for all of them to speak and this will shorten the time needed to see what findings they have in common.”
“Do you want to lead the meeting now?”
“No, just call time and ask them to read out their lists. Have the list put on the main monitor so everyone could see it as they read their lists.”
Luke nodded and started collecting the findings as one group read an item off their list followed by the second group. Michael smiled; this was a good way to insure both members of a group felt their opinions were of equal value. The first twenty findings were on all the group’s lists. He looked out at the assembled admirals and saw Katy staring at him. He kept his expression neutral and continued looking past her but saw her smile. He needed to get out of the meeting before Luke ended it. Having her rush up to talk with him was not something he was interested in.
The list was finally complete and Luke looked at the monitor, “I think I can summarize by saying that we are in agreement that we need to send a larger attack force next time.” He looked out at the assembly and saw most of them nod. “We should also plan for the Legends to leave a major fleet of their newest battleships around the vessel under construction.” He looked around the room and said, “I’ll forward this list to all of the Alliance Fleet Leaders as well as the planetary leadership.”
Michael looked at the secondary list of items that were created only by the original twosomes and were not on another’s list. He said, “One of you said that the findings on this battle will probably not apply to the next attack we have to make. Which of you made that statement?” Talel and Admiral Geeron stood up. Michael smiled. The difference between the Goran and Bird was striking. The Audon was a foot taller than the Goran and its green plumage was beautiful as it changed color as the lights hit it. It was obvious the Audon evolved from a bird-of-prey. Its hooked beak and claws were clear evidence of that, “Why do you feel this way?”
Geeron’s tail went up and he said, “Talel suggested the idea and after a few questions, I found I had to agree with his assessment.”
Michael looked at Talel, “Share with us what you’re thinking.”
Talel nodded and began broadcasting his thoughts, “I remained at the planet after all of our ships left and waited to see what was going to happen. I didn’t see in the recording where the Sentinel went down to the planet and confronted the Elder Legend.”
Michael held up his hand for Talel to wait and he looked at Admiral Jekins, “What about that, Jinks?”
“Sir, I don’t have any information about that happening.”
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Michael looked up, “Pat? Do you know about this?”
“I was the one that went down to the planet.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Piper pointed out before we skipped out that all of the defense installations on the continent where the Legends’ Residence was located were destroyed in the blast of the ship. He said there wasn’t anything to prevent me from going down to the planet. I took a look around and saw he was right. So, I went and paid him a visit.”
The Admirals began speaking among themselves and Luke said, “Silence, please.”
The room grew silent and Michael said, “What happened?”
“I confronted the Elder and he nearly died from his panic. He screamed and I shocked him slightly to shut him up.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
“No, it would have been a waste of energy. He was so petrified with fear that I thought allowing him to live might give the others pause before they undertook another attack. I warned him that if any of his species planned to come to my domain without permission, I would come and kill them.”
Michael looked at Luke and saw him shrug. Michael blew out a breath and knew something else must have happened. He turned to Talel, “I guess you saw something that has caused you some concern.”
Talel smiled, “You are very astute, First Commander. I stayed until another Elder contacted the one that Pat shocked and it determined that Pat was right, that particular Elder would never do anything to confront us again. Its fear ruled its emotions. I sensed that it had probably gone insane from the contact with Pat.”
“But?”
“The Legend that attempted to communicate with it contacted other Elders and they were all frightened by what had happened to it. Their fear led them to all agree that the danger we represented would have to be eliminated.”
“Is this why you say what we learned in this attack won’t serve us in the next one?”
“It is. They all agreed that the new warships will no longer be built near one of their planets. They intend to select a distant location to build those ships and the ships will be delivered to them all at one time before they commence the construction of the new Black Ships that will replace the current ships defending their planets.”
“Were you able to find out the location where they’re going to build them?”
“All of them agreed that the location would be a secret and that the one chosen to build them will leave immediately and tell no one where it’s going.”
“I should have just killed it.”
Michael shook his head and then nodded, “Talel, do you think Pat’s visit is what prompted them to come up with this plan?”
“They were frightened beyond anyone I’ve ever seen. It was the way Pat treated the Elder with a callous disregard for its life. However, even if he didn’t go down to the planet, I suspect they would have eventually devised this plan. After we destroyed another one of those monster vessels, they would have done this. In this instance, we’ve lost the delay the construction of another ship and its destruction would have given us.” Michael nodded and Geeron and Talel sat down.
Audrey said, “We’re going to need to find that location.”
Michael shook his head, “Fleet Admiral, please remember that they said the ships would be built at a distant location. Do you have any idea what that might mean?”
Audrey stared at him for a moment and then shook her head. Michael looked at Talel who shrugged and said, “I got the feeling that distance meant a very long way from their location.”
Michael looked at Audrey, “The galaxy we attacked is more than a billion light years from here. If they go at least that far to build those ships, there will be more than a two hundred million galaxies within a billion light years from them. If they go two billion light years away, which is what I expect them to do, the number swells to more than a billion.”
Audrey looked at Talel, “Your species is telepathic; shouldn’t you be able to find them?”
Talel shook his head and started to speak but Michael interrupted, “Admiral. It appears they are only sending a single Legend out to build those ships and I’m reasonably certain that he has been instructed to not communicate with those that sent him. If he doesn’t broadcast his thoughts, finding a single legend in a galaxy is impossible.”
Audrey stared at Michael and then looked at Talel, who nodded. “So it looks like war is coming soon.”
Michael stared at the gathering and saw even Katy was no longer smiling. “I see two possibilities, Admiral. The first is that the one sent away will build the initial vessels for the living Legends, which means at least twenty five thousand vessels.”
Luke said, “What’s the other possibility?”
“The one sent away decides to take the whole pie for himself and builds the monster vessels along with the giant black battleships. He then comes back and conquers his species. Once that’s done, he comes after us.”
Josh looked at Michael, “I would think they would be extremely careful selecting the one they send out. I know if we were in their place, we would be.”
Michael smiled, “You’ve never heard their thoughts, Admiral. The one thing every one of them has in common is a major case of paranoia. Their fear of dying is what drives their every decision. And this particular Legend is going out with no one to control him or see what he’s doing. There is a good possibility that he could do both.”
Laney shook her head, “Just how would he do that?”
“He builds his personal fleet entirely of Monster Vessels.” The entire room was struck silent by the comment. Michael looked around at the Senior Admirals and saw their doubts written on their faces. “I know what some of you are thinking. You think that a Legend would never allow their tools to have a vessel that could put them in danger.” Michael continued to look at them and saw the Admirals look at each other and nod. Michael smiled, “However, you need to remember that the technology used by the Legends to control the emotions of those around it can be used for more things than just generating fear. It could also be used to cause adoration among its tools.”
Laney’s eyes went wide, “You’re right!”
Luke shook his head, “How would we handle a fleet of a million of those monsters?”
“We’re going to have to build a special ship designed to take on those vessels.”
“But we don’t have a ship that can do that?”
“I seem to recall we just killed one of those ships with a single shot.”
Josh said, “The heavies!”
Michael nodded, “It can’t be done with a small number. The crossfire those monsters could generate is beyond anything we’ve ever faced in the past. I will entertain other suggestions but I don’t see another way to confront huge numbers of them except to have a ship that can take them out. By the way, who was the one that killed the monster above that planet?”
Jinks stood up, “Sir, it actually wasn’t the heavy that made that ship’s destruction possible. The mission would have failed except for the bravery of one of our pilots. My staff is unanimous in recommending that pilot for our highest award for bravery.”
“Do you have a recording of what happened?”
“I do.” Jinks pointed his monitor control unit at the giant screen and every one present stared at the images on it. They saw the heavy moving in toward the giant black vessel with a clear lane between it and its target. Suddenly, four huge black battleships rushed into the heavy’s path. They heard on the speaker, “JOSEY, DON’T DO IT!!” The four black battleships began showing massive explosions on their hulls and, in less than ten seconds, all of them were vaporized in four massive explosions.
All of the attendees looked away from the monitor at Admiral Jekins. He tilted his head and said, “The problem with dark energy beams is that they’re not visible. The only way my staff was able to find this footage was by hearing that voice just before those enemy ships were destroyed. We went through all of our personnel file
s on those that participated in the attack and we found a pilot named Josephine Bartolo. We set our computers to find that pilot’s ship frequency and we followed her from the beginning of the attack until those four ships were destroyed. I’m going to replay what just happened but I’m going to bring the view in much closer between the black warships.”
The monitor’s view changed and the gathering saw the four battleships rush at them until they disappeared. “Keep your eyes on the front middle of the monitor.” The view moved in closer and they suddenly saw a Battle Pod appear out of the barrier with all of its disruptors firing. The only way the disruptor’s beams could be seen was when they blew through the Pod’s force field. The Pod was appearing and disappearing at an incredible speed. The Pod moved through the four ships’ positions and it was clear the enemy’s disruptors were continuously hitting it.
“How many times was it hit, Admiral?”
Jinks paused the recording and looked at Luke, “At least fifty times. However, that pilot managed to never be hit by more than two beams at a time before she move her pod in and then out of the barrier. That pilot seemed to possess a second sense about when to avoid being hit by enough disruptor beams to destroy her ship. It was the destruction of those four enemy battleships that cleared a path for the heavy to fire on the target. It was that heavy’s round that destroyed that giant vessel. The only way we were able to see her do it was by following her ship from the start of the battle to the moment she skipped in among those battleships.”
Michael looked out at the assembly and said, “Does everyone agree that this pilot deserves to be recognized for her actions?” The entire assembly stood up and cheered. The only one that remained seated was Admiral Katy Greenwall. She was using her wrist unit to look up the pilot in question and she didn’t like what she found. But no one noticed her as a time and place was chosen to award her the Alliance Crescent.
• • •
The meeting was adjourned and Michael thought, “Talel, would you stop by a moment.”