They had to be lucky enough to get close, and with their now seemingly lightning speed, along with near perfect stealth, they could do that very quickly. In fact, the second wing was in position, all full stealth, a minute before Jack’s wing completed their circular approach.
The enemy was in huge ships, almost like tubes with blunt ends, stubby wing like appendages, and poor stealth. Well, that was in Jack’s opinion. The stealth was the type that worked against all electronics, but the ships were easily thirty or so miles long, maybe six or seven miles in diameter, and they blotted out a huge portion of the galaxy’s star pattern behind them. To say they were visible was not quite right, but it was close. For that matter, to say it was invisible was a toss-up, too.
Now five hundred fifty thousand miles out, each wing looking ‘down’ relative to Renewal, they opened fire with a cloud of photons, merely a
narrow beam laser light almost four inches thick, a puncture weapons. As designed, the culmination of a few of these light speed arrows could put space where atmosphere should be in a ship of any kind.
Instant acceleration showed from all units on the very first microsecond of discharge, and too many of the photons simply missed. The damned things can move, thought Jack, as he cut down two himself, now much closer, coming right down the path of the initial volley, this time with the power lasers. Broad, deadly, and fast.
His own wing brought down five more. Seven down. Should have been all! What the hell had the alien seen that alerted them to bolt?
The battle was winding down, already. The opposite wing of nine took six more, two sets of three back to back. Six escaped, but Jack was hot on the ass of the rear one, while his opposite wing tangled with four more fleeing Zephroan. He gleefully opened up with the .50 caliber machine guns, tracers in every hundred rounds, and walked them right through the ass end of the huge target from hardly a mile above and behind it. Dismayed, he realized it had no affect! Sparks from steel bullets on harder steel skin!
He was hoping to gain technology, but the sudden onset of blue color from the lenses on the top rear got his attention. Now, he got it. A warning light! No wonder the others saw the attack coming. His system, Chips, put four photon beams right into it with a precise spread before it could get the laser up, followed by one heavy laser bolt, and the thing was gone, the entire ship, right before his eyes.
The flight reported no casualties and all that they had chased were removed. Jack took his first calm breath. Relief. They had taken them…
All but one.
That all important one, however, had completely escaped, gone like a shot. The space in around the wing was in rapidly disbursing dust that would orbit their sun and eventually be burned away. Some of it interfered with long range scans, so the culprit was unseen by any of the flights, and it was frustrating. But, all they knew was that it was planet bound. The last direction registered.
Jack called in a warning, too far out to know if it was received, and then his wing hunted high and low, but they had no idea where the hell the thing had gone. Heading rapidly toward Renewal, he continually radioed out, a long shot, at four million miles, warning of the coming solo intruder.
Spook picked it up and relayed it to Angela’s communicator. “Got all but one. Only flight in, so far. Headed for Renewal, fast. Damned fast!”
Spook reported, unnecessarily, that he had forwarded the message to Renewal, and had the reply.
Between Renewal and the Zephroan was one ship, Resolute, on full stealth, in quiet, stationary orbit, better than a thousand miles out there. Like the denizens of the deep, any world, there were those who loved ambush. Resolute was becoming one of them. In a down and out battle, she could be outgunned.
But, give her first shot…
----
The danger that Resolute faced was the same as the Zephroan. She had decent radar stealth, but she had visible limitations. And she lay like a big shadow across the fully lit face of Renewal hardly a thousand miles away.
But that worked two ways. Every camera and vid system they carried was pointing up or out, trying to silhouette the Zephroan against the bright flare of the stars above Renewal.
All scanners were operating, but without Jack’s help, they were next to useless.
When it happened, it was damned quick.
Radar yelled a warning, “LASER! COLLISION ALARM! PHOTONS RESPONSE!” No matter the size of the threat, photons were the only weapon that could respond in microseconds, with multiple beams. The power Laser took fifteen to thirty seconds to reach standby, and that was already accomplished. But then, from full standby, a full five seconds to fire. In a space battle, five seconds was simply too late. Now everyone froze, expecting the worst.
But the bright blue laser that blasted from somewhere farther up, hardly noticeable until it creased the very nose of Resolute and into the atmosphere of Renewal, far below. Instant raging fire in the sky, so no one could see the results, but Angela only cared that she and her ship were alive.
“System, fire at will,” she cried, but the photons were already closing on the target, a near forty-five degrees up from the bow plane, and only a few thousand miles away, so, immediately, the front end of a massive Zephroan ship began to peel away Under the pressure of the hot narrow, beams. The power laser that followed was the telling blow, however.
The thing blasted out two more uncontrolled blue laser bolts in desperation, well lit by dust and debris thrown up in the damaging of the Zephroan vessel, but it was too late. The massive ship suddenly blew to dust, the lasers missing Resolute by many hundreds of miles. Renewal, too, fortunately.
Like almost all space battles, due to the technology to find and identify the enemy, and the ability to fire quickly and accurately, the whole exercise was over in less than twenty minutes. The last one, Resolute’s target, was less than forty seconds. Extreme terror, lots of adrenaline, then… nothing. That did not mean they lowered their guard.
Right after the Resolute took the Zephroan out, Jack’s voice came in clearly over her communication device, “Damned good shooting, Captain. I am impressed. The wing got eighteen out of the nineteen. I hope that is the lot of them!”
“I think that was two patrols. Tal’Ken had led us to believe that they tended to bunch in eight or nine unit wings.” She was surprised she was sounding so calm, for her heartbeat had to be off the charts. She breathed deep, trying to get control. Then she added, “They got off one huge laser bolt toward Renewal. The atmosphere caught fire, so we do not know the extent of the damage on the surface.”
“I have people looking into that. First report is back and Capitol City was not hit. So far, most have been checking in. I have no idea what kind of damage those lasers do, but they are not like ours!”
“I know. They can vaporize their target, and somehow transfer the energy of the action back to the source. But, if they can take bite sized chunks out of an asteroid, no telling what to expect on Renewal. I have no idea what else that will do to a planet sized target. Maybe scour it. I do not understand it, but Tal’Ken did it very easily. Maybe we need to seek that friendship, again. We could learn something.”
“Maybe.” I am not about to send the sexy little Captain off on a wild goose chase. I’ve just found her!
CHAPTER 10
Jack split his wings into four unit formations, covering almost all of Renewal from an orbit over five thousand miles up off any part of the planet. At their ability to attain well over light speed, they would be in the face of an enemy in seconds.
He held his own craft closer to Resolute, if a thousand miles was considered close, thus allowing Chips to interface with Spook. Or, maybe, to provide some kind of protection for his new love interest. Maybe.
The people of Renewal were hunting high and low to discover the damage, and there was nothing to do for a few hours. The hovercraft were out and about, headed for the firestorm over Colliestown. No one would know anything until they reported in.
“Come on over, let’
s do lunch!” Jack, on full vid screen suggested. The bridge broke into giggles, until Angela hushed them.
This was not the right time, dammit. “Please do not wave your intentions in front of my people, Captain Calmone! And we are far too busy for lunch!”
“Nobody is too busy for lunch. Nothing out here for a long, long ways. I will bring lunch with me, how about in an hour? Chips is interfacing Spook as we speak, and you will want to know the upgrades. What do you say?”
Nance, giving her Captain the ‘big eye’ and all smiles, used two hands, palms down, wriggling her fingers to send her a go for it message. Even Dale Willits was smiling ear to ear.
“Straighten up, pay attention. We have killers out there, people!” she growled. Then, softer, “Okay, lunch, then, you bring it.”
No one said or hinted a word, but Angela could almost hear the repressed giggles and cheers.
Jack began moving his Accoster into position a few hundred miles off, but essentially right next to Resolute, visions of budding romance dancing in his head…
-----
Then came the bad news on the surface. Colliestown, two thousand miles south of Capitol City, at the very bottom of the biggest land mass was simply gone, vaporized to bare dirt. Not a house, a wall, a gate, a vehicle left to view. The radius of the circle of the damage exceeded fifty miles. Almost eight thousand square miles of … dirt and bare rock.
Somehow, the power of the Zephroan cleaned that portion of the planet without destroying it.
Of course, Angela and Jack were both stunned by the power of that laser bolt. Angela had seen the aliens’ lasers in action, but still, to reach down through atmosphere and… remove everything? It was too much to believe.
But they had to believe. Not only did their scanners reveal the completely blank slate below them in Colliestown, but the few transports sent by the Governor were reporting back that it was a vacant land, nothing more…
“I tell you, we have to learn their secrets, Angela... They are going to find us, maybe have found us, I am afraid, and this could become very one sided,” Jack pronounced over the communicator.
“God, I hate to think that we led them here. Tal’Ken had assured us that you were too far out of their territory to bother with.”
-----
Well, that had taken the fun out of the possibility of Captain Washington, the Ice Queen, having lunch with the handsome new age Captain Calmone.
But still, he convinced her. “It is to prepare for the next event, Captain Washington, and it is a requirement. We have to plan. We have to figure out how to stop these things. So, you cannot really say no, right?”
Well, put it that way…
So, it happened, yet in an odd way.
Ten minutes before the appointed time for their lunch meeting, Jack flagged her on the personal communicator, on a channel he had set just for his and her use. No one would know about it, hell they could not even find it. “Nothing out here, you ready for lunch?”
“Yes. I guess so. I can’t get over the loss of Colliestown, though. Kind of depressed, actually.”
“Well, I know just the cure for that. Go to your formal dining room, and find an empty space about ten feet wide. Stand in the center of it until I tell you to move.”
“Why?”
“Well, come on, I cannot surprise you if you know in advance.”
“I hate surprises.” She refused to play a game. People had been… obliterated.
“Then, I am personally going to see about changing your opinion. You can tell me later if I was wrong, and I will bet you a month’s pay I am right.”
“No bet. You are clever and sneaky.” But she softened it with a soft laugh.
“Go.”
She went.
-----
She found a corner area about ten foot on a side totally empty of tables, chairs or anything else. Unknown to her, Jack had arranged for the space through Rogers.
He was starting a kind of loosely tied relationship with Andora, so Jack took advantage of it. They all had something they wanted.
She stood there a moment, then her communicator chimed, and she answered it.
“You found space?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in the middle of it?”
“Like you said!”
“Okay, I have your coordinates. Step out of the space to the nearest table.”
“Okay, I am out. Uhh, how many people are coming?”
“Just me,” he said, right at her elbow, startling the hell out of her!
He was sitting at a completely set up table, full of food, drinks, silverware, the works. He had missed her by about three feet.
“Oh…my… God! I had no idea it could teleport items, products, food… I am… stunned.”
He got up and helped her get seated, once again proving himself a gentleman, a man with manners. True, he even brought the slightly elevated chair! So thoughtful…
She smiled. It was a wonderful surprise. And though they lost a city, every spacer knows to celebrate life. Next time, it could be you down for the count.
“Yes, it can transport whatever you put inside the teleporter’s sensor. But people are read by either a scanner or their wrist communicator, and moved point to point, short distance, without the machine. You remember, we used the teleporter to get you home off of Renewal. That was too long a shot for point to point. So, dig in!”
As she helped herself, she asked the important question, “What do we know about Colliestown, Jack?”
“After lunch, honey. People die. Renewal has had its share of losses. We all have. Later, after we eat!”
She changed topics. “Fruit, of all things. Fresh tomatoes, real ones. Our hydroponics uses speedy growers and they just do not have this flavor,” she said, trying to talk and get a bite at the same time.
He chuckled. Then leaned across the small table and wiped the corner of her mouth with is own napkin. “Just a spot, honey. You can get used to it, you are home!”
“Well that depends. Are we going to find the Tal’Ken, or what? They have the much higher technology to find the Zephroan, and I imagine, anything else they need to find. Frankly, if we sit back and wait, we could be in a never ending war with the Zephroan… and we will simply be beaten down.”
He held up a hand, stopping her. “The only shop I will talk is your new system. Fair enough?”
Angela, always the leader, the challenger, the determined one, found herself outmatched. He was right. To spend the time to set this lunch up, to amaze her, he had the right. “Okay, what did you do to Spook?”
Jack finished the bite of his sandwich, then took a sip of light wine. He had poured half a glass for each out of a very small bottle, as they might be in battle any moment, and they needed their wits. All of them.
“Well, for one thing, he has much longer range of communication. You can talk to me or any of the wing out nearly five million miles. You can talk to Renewal the same way. That alone could save some lives.”
“Yes, I barely heard your warning about the lost Zephroan… Oh, sorry.” She realized she was about to do it again. That was not the topic.
He grinned, indulgently. People mourned differently. Most fighting personnel learned to let death and loss roll off them like water off a duck’s back. “Your new system sensors have much better resolution. Instead of fuzzy objects at a half million miles, you can zoom in on the digital and the system will correct it for you until you can identify it, close to six million. I have people bringing over the latest vid equipment. It will not replace your digital optic telescope, you need that, but it will do wonders on the other mounts you have all over the ship.”
“Okay, I like that. What next?”
“Greedy, Captain. I might require quid pro quo.”
“What do I have to give… scratch that. What else?”
He smiled wide. “I like a smart woman.”
“How do you know? Did you fib, earlier?”
Without missing a step,
he replied, “Not at all. I never found one. It is why I was still looking.”
“Was?”
He took her hand in two of his. “Look, I do not want to scare you off. You have a fabulous career and plenty to do, right here. But surely you know I am very impressed with you, and very interested, not only in your welfare, but in your understanding of me.”
“Oh, I think I got that down pretty well,” she rejoined, smiling wickedly at him.
For a moment, there, the horror of destruction was behind her. And it was good.
CHAPTER 11
Jack grinned, but warned her, “Stop that, or I will prove you right. No, your experience was from men who saw you as a conquest, and were not interested in long term. I think you will be pleasantly surprised…” he held up a hand, “I know, you hate surprises. But I guaranteed you this one would go over very nicely… was I right?”
“Yes. Okay. It did lift my spirits. I am… impressed. Maybe an old dog… say, do you have dogs?”
“What?” His face showed his confusion. Mostly, it was because he had no idea what a dog would be… well, a vague memory of them, anyway. “Dogs? Uhh, no. We have something like a cat that came with the planet. They tame down nice. Why, you folks did not bring dogs, either?”
“No, not cost effective. Every square inch of husbandry is in cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, pigs and rabbit. Things to eat. Not even horses.”
“Then, I can amaze you some more. We have trained and bred a horse look alike from the wilds. Bigger, but fast, sure footed and fun. Not as big as a camel, so the stories go, and much more friendly. I would love to take you riding.”
Suddenly, she pulled her hand free and leaned back in her chair. “We have talked all around the problem, Jack. What do your people do about the loss of a whole city?”
He frowned. “Okay, then, serious time. Well, first of all, it has happened with disease and natural catastrophe a couple of times. Until we figured out how to counter an alien virus, we got all the way down to five thousand breeding couples only fifty years ago.
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