by Saxon Andrew
RV listened to the probe’s technician’s reports and called off the attacks when one of the attack groups was caught by the millions of ships that no longer had a home world to defend. The ships they fell on were burned out of existence by fleets that continued to fire on them long after they were destroyed.
RV looked over and said, “How many planets have we destroyed?”
“More than eight million, sir.”
“That’s eight billion ships that are now free to attack our ships. The box exercise is now over. All ships will return to the Major’s Sector.”
The probe supervisor said, “Actually the number is not that high, Admiral.”
“Why not?”
“Most of the ships defending the planets were destroyed with the planet. When they refused to support each other we had numerical superiority.”
“Then now many ships weren’t destroyed?”
The supervisor shrugged, “Five hundred million.”
RV leaned back, “Oh, only half a billion; what great news!”
Cyanna looked at RV and said, “What are you going to do now?”
“Have supper and see what they do with all these ships.”
The probe supervisor said, “Most of those that were moved from their front lines are being sent back to the front to reinforce their lines.”
“What do you mean by most of them?”
“A billion ships were left behind to stop our attacks; the others are returning to those lines. The surviving ships from our attacks are being moved to a central location.”
“Oh, that makes it easier. Now we’re only outnumbered two hundred to one.”
Cyanna shook her head. Their attacks against the Red Sector hadn’t made a much of a dent in the total number of warships that could be sent against them. But they still weren’t forming into an attack formation.
• • •
Cyanna and RV sat in his conference room on the Havana and Cyanna watched him stare at the salad in front of him for thirty minutes and not move. She got up and went to the wall intercom, spoke for a minute, and came back and sat down. She waited and RV slowly shook his head, “We’ve created a fleet of ships that are now determined to destroy everything they encounter. We’ve destroyed their home worlds and those ships are out for blood.”
Cyanna watched him continue to stare at his salad and said, “This is just another box.”
RV smiled and said, “They do get bigger as we work our way through them.”
An Ensign come in and placed a huge hamburger and a large pile of fries in front of RV. RV’s face lit up and Cyanna said, “Maybe you can concentrate now.”
RV looked at her and his expression was like a shepherd seeing an angel. He dove into the meal and said, “Sometimes it’s the simple things that bring the most joy. I thought we were out of beef.”
“I’ve been having them save this for the appropriate moment.”
“The only thing that would beat this is you having a boy.”
“I am pregnant again. You never know.”
RV’s face shot up faster than a penetrator, “You are!”
Cyanna nodded and said, “Finish your meal. We have other things to worry about.”
“Life can’t get any better than this moment.”
Cyanna smiled. After RV finished eating she said, “How many attack craft do we have?”
RV thought a moment and Cyanna said, “I’ll save you the mental gymnastics. We have over six billion that have been modified with the new force fields. All of the two sector’s planets are building them at a breakneck pace. If we can delay the Red Sector another six weeks, we will have more than twenty billion of them completed.”
RV sat back and said, “What other good news do you have?”
“The Emperor tells me that all of the new attack craft are being fitted with Light Wave Penetrators and ultra-beams. They have a stockpile to refit our attack craft with the Light Waves. All we need to do is find a way to penetrate their formations for us to make them effective.” She paused and said, “We also have more than a hundred million battleships in the two sectors as well.”
RV nodded, “But for them to be able to fight the Red Ships, we have to make them leave their formations.” RV shrugged, “Well, another box.”
Cyanna laughed, “Yes it is.”
RV thought a moment and said, “We have boxes for them as well.”
Cyanna laughed and said, “And most of them aren’t gift wrapped.”
RV shrugged, “I never was good with scotch tape.”
• • •
The Supreme Leader stared at the Red Sector Admiral and said, “We’ve lost more than twenty light years to the Grillen because of your movement of our forces; winning that back is going to be difficult.”
“It was either move the forces or lose ten million planets.”
“We’ll lose a lot more than ten million planets if the enemy breaks through our lines. What are you going to do about this?”
“We’re totally defensive. So far, it’s only the white ships that are attacking us. I believe the other sector is too frightened to do anything.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re going to do about it.”
“I’m going to take those ships out of the game.”
“How?”
“Hit them where it hurts the most.”
“Keep me informed on what’s happening.”
“I will, Sire.”
• • •
Cyanna sat with the fleet admirals as they discussed the next option to use against the Red Sector. Suddenly the main wall display came on and George was on it and everyone immediately saw his anxiety. RV said, “What’s wrong!”
“We just had more than two hundred million Red Ships jump into our galaxy.”
RV stood and said, “Have they found our planets?”
“Oh yes. They came straight to New Sierra-Garcia. They’ve been beaming the planet for twenty minutes.”
“Why didn’t you notify me immediately?”
“It would have been a wasted effort if they were able to penetrate the force field. As it is, we’re picking off their ships whenever they move closer than fifty miles.”
RV sat down, “How are you doing that?”
“The Harmony Federation has a planet based beam that has the power of the force field. If they move closer, it blows right through their beams and kills whatever it hits.”
“What about our other planets?”
George looked away for a moment and said, “It appears they are spreading out and attacking other civilizations.”
RV jumped back up, “George, the civilizations that invited us to move are going to be destroyed. We’ve got to come back.”
George said, “You may need to come back but not because of that.” George shook his head, “Those Federation engineers are amazing builders. They installed a force field on every civilized planet in this galaxy soon after their arrival. It appears they weren’t willing to trust that we wouldn’t be found. It’s a good thing they’re paranoid about safety.”
Kate said, “How’s the force field holding up?”
“We’re seeing it weaken with the ongoing attack but the loss is slight. We’re bringing more reactors online and expect the levels to return to normal.”
RV thought a moment and looked at Kenny. Kenny shrugged and RV said, “Don’t bring them online right away.”
“Why not?”
“What do you think they’ll do if they see the strength of the field decreasing there and nowhere else?”
George thought a moment and said, “You’re right. We’ll even allow it to decrease slightly faster.”
Gibbs looked around the table and said, “You lost me. Why would we do that?”
RV shrugged, “If you’re beating a rock with a five pound hammer and it’s only being slowly worn down; what do you do if you don’t have the patience to wait?”
Gibbs said, “Use a ten pound hammer?”
“Exactly
, if the force field around Sierra-Garcia is showing a faster decrease in strength than all the other planets, I expect them to concentrate their efforts there.”
Gibbs stared at RV, “You want them to consolidate their forces?”
“That’s what they do best. They are not a defense minded civilization; they only know how to attack and they do it from massive formations. Bringing all their ships to bear on one target is what they do best and I’m reasonably sure they will form a large attack formation.”
Kate looked at Kenny who nodded. She turned to RV, “Why do you want them to do that?”
RV looked at George on the display and said, “Practice.” RV paused and said, “If we leave, the Red Sector will attack the other two sectors. They have also sent forty percent of the ships they can use here to defend against our attacks. Notify me if anything changes; however, we are going to stay here and continue our assault.”
“I’ll let you know. We’re all nervous but the force field is living up to Boden’s promise. Are you going to do anything about the ships here?”
“I want them to gather their forces. I’ll wait until that happens.”
George nodded and the display went blank. RV looked around the table, “Ok, now they have about three hundred million ships to use to counter our fleets. How do we work around their numbers?”
Kate said, “I think we need to concentrate on reducing those numbers.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“The ships coming to defend their planets are not in formation. They form up after their arrival; that’s something we ought to be able to exploit.”
RV pressed the communication panel, “Jim, do you have any recordings from the probes of Red Ships moving into formation?”
“How many would you like?”
“Just four; send the ones with the largest numbers forming up.”
“I’ll send you six. The last one has more than a million.”
“Thanks, Jim.”
The six admirals examined the videos and Cyanna told them how to attack the Red Sector formations. RV was once again impressed with his wife’s ability to see things others missed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Red Sector Sub-Admiral watched his control display and saw an emergency call come in, “We have more than a hundred thousand white ships emerging in our system!”
The Admiral looked at his board and dispatched two hundred thousand ships. He looked back up and as he expected the numbers of calls for assistant roared in. He flipped a switch and the computer began making the assignments. There was no way the response could be done any other way.
Half of Mikal’s sub-fleet had jumped in to a planetary system and formed up. The other half was attacking another planet and Riebbe was commanding that attack. Only a third of their small craft were with the main battleships and Mikal held his formation waiting to see the magnitude of the response against his ships. The Sensor Officer announced, “Massive numbers of ships emerging into normal space.”
“How many?”
“Two hundred thousand plus.”
Mikal said, “Move us in.”
The Union Ships moved forward and the Red Ships began organizing into their pyramid formation. Mikal watched as the ships that made the base of the pyramid quickly formed a solid square and the other four sides began moving into place. Mikal said, “Right about now.”
• • •
Lt. Amie Jabaran led her thirty needles around the planet and targeted the top right corner of the base being formed. Her thirty ships stayed in single file slightly staggered under each other. There was no room to fan out as another two hundred thousand needles were flying in at high speed. Their formation matched the size of the Red Ships base and they were on the Red Ships faster than they could respond. The base was not quite completed and the blasts were incredible. The sensor buoy had blanketed all of the military frequencies being used by the Red Ships, so they had no warning from the planet about the ships that had jumped in keeping the planet between their fleet and the small ships.
The Fleet Commander watched as his fleet formed up and wondered why the white ships had not jumped away. That’s what they always did when confronted with superior numbers. He turned on his communicator and was greeted with a high frequency screech that was painful. He looked at his second, “Our communications are being blocked by that high power transmitter.”
He started to respond but one small problem prevented him from doing it. The Command ship was always the center ship in the base of the pyramid. The Light Wave Penetrator that hit his ship left nothing behind that could be used to communicate.
Amie banked her squadron with the top half of the formation and moved above the Red Ship formation. The second wave of attack craft roared in less than a second behind the first wave and fired a full salvo of main penetrators into the open end of the giant pyramid. As Red Ships rushed away from the formation to avoid the massive explosions that were exploding outward from the interior, they were met with the first wave of needles and fifty thousand dog fights erupted. As the Main Battleships arrived on the scene complimented by the remaining small craft moving in with them, the slaughter began.
Some of the Red Ships might have survived but these were ships that had their home worlds destroyed. Their hatred of the white ships was beyond rage and none of them chose to save themselves. The White Fleet paid a price. Some of the Red Ships began flying their ships into the White Fleet hitting the main battleships at incredible velocities. The beams they were firing burned anything fired at them and they managed to hit the force fields and slam into the ships unfortunate enough to be their targets.
Mikal yelled, “All battleships, jump out of here now!” The huge white ships disappeared and the small craft finally eliminated the last Red Ship an hour later.
Amie did a count and saw that she had lost eight of the ships in her squadron. She had come close to dying when one of the Red Ships had turned and she saw the terrible main beam moving at her. She was bracketed on three sides by the beams blowing past her ship and there was nowhere to run. She reached for her jump drive but knew she would never press it in time. Then the Red Ship was blown away by a penetrator and she flew over the resulting explosion. She forced herself to control the adrenaline rushing through her system and immediately launched at a Red Ship directly in front of her. The beams used by the Red Ships was so wide that the only safe place to attack them was from the rear; or front if their beam turret was pointed to the rear of the ship.
Cyanna had seen that when the Red Ships formed up, the ships in the base had their main beam turrets pointed forward until they completed the base. Then they turned their turrets to the rear. This time they had managed use that against them. Amie looked at the empty berths on the Amazon and wondered how costly this fight had been. Mikal saw that more than fifty thousand Needles had been destroyed. He watched as a Light Wave was fired into the planet and then he jumped his fleet away to lick their wounds. He had lost two thousand main battleships along with the needles. This was a victory in terms of numbers, but he knew the Union would run out of ships long before the Red Sector at the rate of loss he had endured. The numbers were just so overwhelming.
He waited for the report from Riebbe and worried about Loree. Would they have a future? He waited for the reports. The first news to arrive was that Loree’s ship had been hit and destroyed. Survivors were being picked up. He put his head in his hands and prayed. He understood the Red Ships hatred. He was starting to feel it as well. This was becoming personal. The next six hours were the longest Mikal had ever experienced. Then he lifted his head when he heard, “Bet I had you worried.”
Mikal took the deepest breath he had ever taken and said, “Thank you, God.”
Loree said, “You should thank the crew of the Zendra. The Hive Ship found my escape pod tangled up in wreckage. Don’t worry, my love. I’m alright.”
Mikal whispered, “My life is back. Stay safe.”
“I’ll do what I
can in this crazy war. I’ll contact you after I organize my new ship and crew.”
• • •
RV watched the video of the battle and shook his head. “We need a more effective weapon against their ships. I know our ships are more maneuverable than theirs but that beam is so wide and the turrets can turn fast enough to hit our ships. They just use that beam to sweep the area around their ships.”
• • •
Phil and Anne were in RV’s conference room watching the video. They had come to the Havana to answer any questions he had about the information they had gathered on the Red Sector’s history. They waited patiently as Cyanna and RV tried to determine how to counter the advantages of the Red Battleships.
After a few minutes Phil said, “I’ve found that it’s often good to see what they can’t do to determine what should be done.”
RV and Cyanna looked at Phil and Anne hoped he hadn’t made the Admiral angry. “Tell me what you mean, Captain.”
“Well, I’ve been watching the video while we’re waiting and it appears they do a great job of attacking anything around them.”
“Go on.”
“I assume that you busted up their formation in an attempt to eliminate their combined fire.”
“That’s our plan.”
“Well, what do they not do well?”
Cyanna looked at RV and replayed the video. She looked back at Phil and asked, “What do you see?”
“They don’t change direction very quickly. Their turns are not done sharply.”
RV said, “They don’t have to; their turret beams cover the arc of their maneuvers.”
“Not from the rear of their ship.”
RV said, “Go on.”
“Notice that both turrets on the rear of the ship are slightly raised above the hull. They are designed to fire over the rear stabilizer fins and fan out above and below them. When they pass the fins the beams are at their narrowest.”
RV replayed the video and slowed down the replay of a Red Ship firing at a pursuer. “You’re right. Where are you going with this?”