by Saxon Andrew
• • •
Leigh Ann looked at the Leader of the Alliance on her display. The giant snake was frightening to view but was a good soul. “Madam, you are right about things falling apart. One would think the lessons from the past wouldn’t fade this quickly but it appears that millions of years of history also don’t fade easily either.”
“What have you determined?”
“Peace has a way of causing issues. There are no more attacks on each other but attacks can take many different forms. Economic attacks are just as devastating as being hit by warships. Many of the members have been victimized by the richer civilizations in their dealings and as a result mistrust and anger has been growing over the centuries. Now old allies are starting to plan to end the economic rule of the galaxy’s richest planets. It would have already happened but for the power of your ships.”
“Can you enforce the peace without us?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“We are going to have to take on an advanced civilization that is just as powerful as we are and outnumbers us. None of the civilizations in the Galactic Assembly can survive them so would be no help against them. We believe that if we don’t resolve the issue, your members will eventually be a target of their expansion.”
“Can you prove they exist? That might slow the more aggressive species down.”
“We should be able to provide that information but our sociologists think that once they learn we are going to be tied up, they won’t wait to attack. It will only cause the civil war to start now.”
“You’re probably right. I suspect this is not a good time for my galaxy.”
Leigh Ann thought a moment and decided that being less than honest was not what was needed. “Do you recognize that your species is one of those that are hated by the majority of your civilizations?”
The Snake stared at Leigh Ann and released a long hiss, “Yes, I know.” Leigh Ann remained silent and the Snake finally said, “My original ancestor did not want the leadership position that was thrust on him. He vacated the position as quickly as possible but the civilizations here had developed a huge respect for his species. We have been elected repeatedly since his abdication. This position has placed my civilization in a position to prosper. We do not take advantage economically but even so, wealth follows leadership. My assembly had seen the inertia toward civil war building over the years and I have recommended that the Central Government elect a new leader, but I think that course would cause things to fall apart even faster. There is now a general distrust of any wealthy civilization no matter how that wealth was acquired. I think if you would recommend a change in leadership, it might happen.”
Leigh Ann shook her head, “It would probably insure you remained in power. Humans are feared now more than respected.”
The Snake slowly lowered its head, “I fear you’re probably right. The thing that prevents most of our aggressive civilizations from uniting and attacking you is that no one knows where the bulk of your planets are located. We know where Earth is but no one has found where you moved your populations during the first Galactic War.” The Snake paused and said, “You could impose peace on the members.”
“Then we would be no better than the original Majors and Red Sector Civilizations. Ultimately, we would be attacked and I wouldn’t blame those that did it. This is the reason we have not shared our technology with any other civilizations…before now.”
The Snake’s head came up faster than she thought possible. “You’re going to share your technology?”
“With our two closest allies.” The Snake stared at Leigh Ann and remained silent. “You know they have been targeted by the leadership of the Aggressives.”
The Snake made another long hiss, “You know about that?”
“We do and, ordinarily, we wouldn’t do this. However, if we are faced with defeat, we know they will be attacked. They’ll probably be attacked even if we win. If we are weakened, the war will start and they will be the first casualties.”
“Defeating the wealthy planets will not be easily done.”
“Do you honestly think they will go after you first? They’ll come after us and our allies and then turn their attention to you.” Leigh Ann paused and looked the Snake in the eyes, “And do you think the wealthy civilizations will come to our defense?” The Snake stared at Leigh Ann and said nothing. “Even your species has agreed not to get involved if that happens.”
The Snake broke eye contact which usually never happened with the Snakes, “Your sources are remarkable; that was only discussed in a private meeting with the Highest Royals. They feel that we would be attacked in turn if we came to your assistance.” The Snake paused and said, “If you know this, why are you communicating with me?”
“I know your species is driven by genetics to protect your eggs and you will not do anything that would jeopardize their safety. Like all the other civilizations in your galaxy, you are now looking out for your own. You also see us as the ones that are forcing you to not take action to further your ambitions…and territory. You speak of what’s coming as a bad thing but you are not doing what needs to be done to prevent it or even delay it. You should know that we’re aware of all the dynamics that are operating in the Galactic Alliance and we are part of the problem. Equilibrium has been lost and now the forces of peace are being overwhelmed by civilizations that don’t remember the horrors of interstellar war. We originally joined the Alliance because we honestly thought those lessons would never be forgotten. We were wrong.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’ve considered announcing that Earth, the Horde, and the Hive have jointly agreed to secede from the Alliance and will no longer be involved in the direction the Galaxy decides to travel.”
“If you do that, war will break out immediately.”
“And you’re not ready for that to happen just yet.” The Snake did not move or give any indication of what it thought about the statement. “We know that you’re right about dealing honestly with members of the Alliance. We honor and respect your ancestor that helped establish the Alliance and because of those feelings we are not going to make the announcement. You have it within your powers to unite and attack any civilization that attacks another civilization. You could insure peace if you choose to do so; you don’t need us as the enforcers. However, I am officially notifying you that we and our allies are no longer members of the Alliance and will not take part in any of your future decisions. We will not attack another member and will only fight to protect our citizens. You may tell the Alliance members of this new situation at the moment of your choosing.”
“You know that once that announcement is made, you will be viewed as a threat?”
“Do you think we’re not seen that way now?”
“So we’re back to where we were a thousand years ago.”
“Not really.”
“Oh?”
“A thousand years ago, we were at the mercy of the two Sectors. You have no idea just how powerful our ships are and it would be an extremely bad decision to make us angry. You know that we keep our promises. We promise to leave your galaxy to its future without intervention. If you choose not to believe us and take us on, you need only look at what the Red Sector represented. We will not tolerate attacks.”
“You know that it’s just a matter of time until your technology is duplicated by other civilizations.”
“You’re not far from that now.” The Snake’s head dropped quickly. Leigh Ann smiled and said, “You didn’t think we knew about your new ships? However, you might consider one small bit of information.”
“What is that?”
“Do you think we’ve stood still in developing new technologies? We’ve had dark matter ships for a thousand years. Do you think we would reveal any new technology to you? Think about that.”
The Snake’s display went dark and all the plans of the High Royals suddenly looked like smoke disappearing in the wind. If the Humans had more p
owerful ships…the future only held death and destruction. He whipped his hundred foot length around and moved out of his office at an incredible speed. The Royals had to see this conversation.
• • •
Leigh Ann leaned back in her chair and sighed. She pulled up a historical picture of Chris and Jillian Connor on her display and stared at it. Chris had been elected President after George imposed term limits on the position. Chris and Jillian had insisted on continued ship building; he could not allow himself to trust the civilizations in M87. It was a glorious age for humanity and most did not believe the members of the Galactic Alliance would ever return to their warlike ways. She sighed and knew Chris was right. Arvolo was elected President after Chris even though he fought against taking the position. The only way they prevailed to make him do it was to move the capital of humanity back to Earth where it had remained until current times. Two hundred years later, a Moet Royal was elected president but he had refused to move the capital. Earth was spiritual ground, symbolic of the Union. Its destruction in the first war and the subsequent rebirth symbolized the lessons learned. Gonchat was one of the Union’s greatest President’s and he had further insisted on developing technologies that would insure the Union would survive. His species had seen first-hand that old habits die hard. Now all of the old heroes were gone and it was left to her to make the right decisions to defend the Union. Her panel beeped and she smiled, “Did you get all that?”
Belwen appeared on her display and shook his head, “Why is it so hard to see where they’re headed?”
“Ambition is a cruel master. Where are you on the new ship?”
“Close.”
“How close?”
“We’ve managed to create a drive that actually works.”
“When did that happen!?!”
“Yesterday.” The Harmony Federation Leader smiled, “We’ve finally managed to get the wrinkles out of the system.”
“And?”
“It appears to be what we hoped. I’ll let you know after we install it in one of the Rovers.”
“We don’t have much time.”
“I know, Madam President. All of our engineers are working on the project.”
“What about the weapon?”
“We’ve got that operational now but without the field to protect the ship that fires it…”
“I know. Keep me informed.”
“I will.”
Leigh Ann shook her head. No one from the Harmony Federation had ever held political office in the Union. Even they recognized that the leaders of the Union had to possess the will to make tough decisions about using their powerful fleet. They were too peaceful by nature to ever do that. The Union’s builders were what made it powerful. That was a trust that would never be lost and Leigh Ann hoped they would develop the tools needed for survival. Leigh Ann pushed her communicator, “Admiral Hull.”
“Yes Sir.”
“The Federation is close to developing the new ship. I want the first one delivered to Dat as soon as it’s available.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“There are some things that are as certain as the laws of physics; he is his ancestor’s child. He’s the one that will lead us.”
“His scores were remarkable.”
“His scores were impossible. We need to take advantage of those that are gifted to us.”
“Yes Sir.”
• • •
Loran arrived at the coordinates and oriented the ship to the giant galaxy. He powered up the Connor Fields and looked at his display, “Spike, I need you keep a close watch on green space for anything moving our way.”
“I’m on it.”
“Sugar, I don’t want to waste time on this. Once you have a picture, I want to accelerate into it and collect the data at high speed. We will not do this longer than an hour.”
“How far do you want to extend the fields?”
“We have the exact coordinates of where the beam was found, so we will expand the fields a minute and then start accelerating.”
“You’re nervous about this.”
“Yes, I am Spike. They know someone is out here and I expect to be jumped. Keep the skip drive hot and at the first sign of anything suspicious, get out of here.”
“Are you ready?”
Loran nodded and watched the Connor Field start expanding around his ship.
• • •
“We have another field out in open space above the galaxy.”
“Send the ship. Do not send more than one and have it moving at stealth level.”
“It’s on the way.”
• • •
Loran’s ship was moving at half the speed of light into the light being tracked. He kept his eyes on his monitor and didn’t see anything moving through green space. Perhaps the black creatures didn’t see him. Suddenly a giant ship emerged into normal space directly in front of him and Spike hit the skip drive. The beam that was fired at the Rover was massive but it arrived a tenth of a second too late. Loran felt his heart in his chest and heard Sugar say, “That beam was one tenth the width of the first beams fired. It appears they are capable of focusing the power into a smaller beam.”
“Did you get an energy reading?”
“I did and it’s off the scale. With our force field down to expand the Connor Fields, we would have been vaporized if it had hit us.”
“Were you able to release a follower?”
“I already had it following us. It should follow that ship wherever it goes.”
“That’s good planning, Spike.”
There was a momentary pause and Loran heard Spike say, “I thought your precautions were unwarranted but Captain Arvolo was right; these ships are dangerous.”
“Will a fully powered force field stand up to that beam?”
“We won’t know until one of our ships is hit by one. The jury is still out on that issue.”
• • •
The Leader on the giant ship stared at the former location of the small ship on his display and turned to his weapon’s controller, “Did we hit it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Whatever was at the center of that electronic field is no longer there and the field appeared to explode outward when our beam hit.”
“Is there any residue?”
The scanner operator shook his head and after a moment said, “That doesn’t mean we didn’t hit it. Our beam is so hot it could have burned all the mass into energy which is what we saw. There have been numerous hits in the past that left nothing measureable behind.”
“Play the scan back at the slowest speed you have and tell me what you see.”
The Scanner played the recording back ten times at the slowest speed possible and shook his head, “The beam blinds me as to what happened. It did blow through whatever was there and the blast prevented seeing anything at the moment it hit.”
“Lower the force field and make another scan for debris.”
The Scanner scanned again and shook its head, “The results are the same.”
“The Fifty are going to want an answer. Did we kill that ship or not?”
“There is no way to know for certain.”
“Then we killed it. Is everyone clear on that?”
The Weapons Controller continued to stare at his panel, “I really believe we did.”
Everyone on the ship’s bridge immediately accepted the Weapon Controller’s statement as fact. None of them wanted to face the anger of the Fifty for a failed attack.
• • •
The follower probe moved up against the giant ship when the force field dropped and attached itself to the hull. When the giant ship jumped away, it was still attached.
Chapter Four
Jon looked at the recording and said, “It appears Captain Arvolo was right; those ships are capable of focusing their beams. They can also see the Connor Field almost the moment we activate it.”
“They have a green space field that can also be manipulated. It appears from the recording taken in green space that they sharpen the front of the field and taper it back to the ship. That shape leaves a very small track in green space. It was detected just as the ship emerged into normal space and that is what allowed Loran to escape. The ship actually fired before it was completely in normal space.”
Jill looked back at her display, “That would mean they have a tracking and targeting mechanism that is superior to ours.”
Jon shook his head, “Not necessarily; they could have been observing our ship as they approached and had the target locked in as they came closer.”
Jill looked up, “That would actually make more sense. Electrical impulses don’t move faster than light speed and there is a limit on the time any electronic device could take the reading, convert it to a target, and fire the beam. That ship’s time was faster than the time necessary for that to happen.” Jill was impressed that Captain Anders had already made that determination.
Jon looked at his panel and said, “We need to look at their defensive capabilities. Ben, do you still have one of the Connor probes on your ship?”
“I have three in storage.”
Jill sat up straighter. She knew where this was going.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. Ben, you will launch the Connor probe at another location above their galaxy and jump away. Have it activate a minute after you skip. Jill, Tim, and Loran will have that location locked in and as soon as that device is hit, you will skip in and fire on the ship that hits the probe. Ben, make sure the probe has its self-destruct circuit active. You will fire and jump away before the enemy ship can return fire. Your ships will be linked by the command circuit but Jill’s ship will fire a thousandth of second before the other two. You will then skip out and we’ll examine what we see.” The three Rovers acknowledged the orders and began organizing their ships for the attack.