by Saxon Andrew
“Thank you, you may go back to your group. Notify me if you find anything.” The old scientist bowed and shambled away from the grove of Algean Leaders.
The second oldest leader turned and said, “The Strangers have not returned since their last attack on the Harvesters. I’m concerned that they may be waiting for the next Harvesters to come out to the null band.”
The Eldest Leader leaned toward the Military Leader and said, “Have you made any plans to insure the Harvesters safety.”
“Yes, Leader, I have. We will bring the new fleet to the null band and place a missile shield around the space the Harvesters will jump from to our storage world. I am also having two full fleets on alert for immediate jump into the system if the Strangers show up again. I know they are our older model ships but they have been armed with the new power missile. We will follow them this time when they jump away. I will assign a ship to every ship they use to track their jumps.”
The Eldest Leader said nothing but looked back up at the bright red sun which told the Military Leader that his plan was acceptable. The golden soil continued to feed them and they relaxed enjoying the beautiful day.
Tag, Dorg, Chen, Mikado, and Ron-Dar sat around the conference table in the Gardner Castle Library planning the upcoming battle. Tag looked around the table and said, “I’m sure some of you are wondering why I’ve invited Ron-Dar to the meeting. His actions during our hit and run on the Algeans at the planet they are currently harvesting have convinced me that he has the talent to command more than just one ship, so I have sent the paperwork to promote him to Commodore effective with this meeting. He will continue to command my five ship flotilla and control the group jump mechanism that is being installed in all our ships. My group will not be involved in the fleet action but will stand off and observe what is taking place making sure our ships are not trapped during the battle. Welcome to the Fleet Command Circle, Ron-Dar.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Gardner. I look forward to assisting this group any way I can.”
Dorg smiled and said, “It’s good to have a Glod on our team. I was getting weary of this constant Human perspective.” He looked around the room at the humans present and said, “Lighten-up, you know I’m just playing with you. Ron-Dar, I know Tgon-Gee and all your people are proud of you and we also look forward to working together.”
“Where are we in our plans right now?” Tag asked.
Dorg pressed a button on his console and pointed at the wall display, “We have discussed how we are going to prepare our ships for this engagement and what you said earlier troubled me.”
Tag leaned back in his chair and said, “How so?”
“I don’t think the plants will wait until after this battle to use massive numbers. We hit their harvesters at just the moment before they jumped and you know we hurt their food resources by doing so; I think they probably expect us to hit them again when the next harvesters attempt to make their exit from the system.”
Tag leaned back, closed his eyes for a minute and said, “We would do the same thing if it were us. I think you’re right. I suspect they have a plan in place to use additional support if we show up again; I’m just not certain about how much support that might be.”
Mikado leaned forward and added, “How many ships are we going to use? Why would they not make an overwhelming number available?”
“So what’s the Plan?” Tag asked.
“We are going to prepare two fleets differently,” Dorg said. “Mikado’s fleet will carry a weapon load and set their beams for the new ships the Algeans have developed. Admiral Chen will arm his ships with the weapons needed to handle the old style ships. Obviously, Chen’s penetrators will have to carry hornets where Mikado’s will be the new three stage penetrators. Mikado’s ships will also be programmed to fire the small primary beams that move seventy feet across the surface of the ship they hit. Chen’s will use the wide primary beams of our earlier battles.”
“Why can’t you arm the ships with both types of weapons?” Tag asked while looking at the wall display that had pictures of the various weapons to be used.
“Because it takes time to rotate the mix and in a space battle time is something that is in short supply. Not only would the Captains have to track what type of ship they’re tracking but then advise weapons to change the mix of weapons. This way, you avoid the ships you’re not armed to handle and attack those you are.” If none of the old ships show up, then Chen will stand off and fire two stage penetrators at the Algeans. We are including three volleys of the new hornets on Chen’s ships because the Algeans may fire some of those new anti-matter missiles at him. This would at least allow him to escape before being hit.”
“I think you’ve come up with a good plan, Admiral; while we’re fighting, Tresk will attempt to use the new jump system on the other side of the planet. We won’t have to stay long.” Tag looked around and said, “Is there anything else?”
No one said anything so everyone stood up to leave but Ron-Dar said, “I have one small concern.”
Everyone stopped and looked at him and he said, “If they bring in the number of ships you anticipate, won’t they have enough to assign every one of our ships several vessels to track our jump line? And since the battle takes place outside the jump limit, they will have immediate readings of our jumps.”
Everyone sat back down. Ron-Dar said, “If I might suggest to the group, why don’t we use some of the Plant tactics.”
Dorg looked at him and said, “Go on.”
“We know the route we’re going to use to jump from the system while making our escape; why not set up a globe of penetrators in five consecutive jumps. Our entire fleet jumps into the first coordinates in the middle of fifty thousand penetrators and immediately jumps out to the second globe of missiles, then to the third, and so forth. After we enter the fifth globe, we jump back to the first globe and finish off any ships left behind and then go thru the other four systems we left penetrators. When we get back to the fifth globe the second time, we jump our ships into the center of the globe facing out. I don’t think they will jump into the center again at that point. We will then destroy any ships that show up. We know that the jump tracks will disappear after 10 minutes so we’ll jump out to a sixth location and see if anything shows up. If nothing does, then the fleet will jump thru three other locations waiting 10 minutes each time to make sure they were not followed.”
Tag was smiling and he immediately noticed that Mikado and Chen were shaking their heads in admiration. Dorg stood and said, “Commodore, you are tasked with setting up the five jumps and getting the penetrators in place. Our fleets will be slaved to your ship, so take us on a ride that the Plants will not soon forget. We might get them to quit trying to follow us eventually if they keep losing ships.”
Ron-Dar stood and said, “Yes sir, I’ll have it set up in five rotations. I don’t want to take the penetrators from our ships stores so I’ll get Cade to transport the penetrators to the five systems selected in advance.”
Chen asked. “How long will it take to get the penetrators in place?”
Ron-Dar said, “I suspect it will take at least twenty more rotations. I think we have time because the harvesters at the planet have not started moving out yet.”
Tag stood and said, “This meeting is over, we will probably leave within three days after the penetrators are in place. The sensor probe we left behind in the system indicates that three of the harvesters have gathered away from the planet but it looks like forty more are still being loaded. I suspect that within thirty days they will start their exit and of course that is when we will make a grand entrance. Get your ships ready, we will form up at the jump point we will use to exit the system. We’ll start our attack from there.”
Everyone stood and left the room and Tag sat back down thinking about the upcoming conflict and then thought, “Atlas, did you listen in on our meeting?”
“Yes, I did,” Atlas replied.
“I don’t know
why, but something doesn’t feel right about this upcoming battle.”
“Listen to your feelings. I would suggest that your departure plans from the harvesting system not be delayed if things get out of control.”
“Do you know anything?”
“No, but I’ve seen too many of your hunches to know that you should listen to them.”
“Ok, I hope it’s not something too bad, but I don’t feel right calling off the attack simply because of a bad feeling.”
“I think that’s the most important reason to call it off. Remember, your psychic skills will protect you. Don’t try to analyze them, just trust them.”
Tag sat a moment in silence, and then he thought to Atlas, “I’ll contact Sung Lea and see if she sees anything. Beyond that, I have to think about what we should do.” He stood to leave but the feeling of wrongness would not go away and followed him out of the room.
Rose was sitting in her play room with her toys on the day of the fleet’s departure and could sense the bad feeling her father was experiencing as he sat on his ship getting ready to travel to the weed galaxy. She got up and walked out of her room and went to the library where the map of galaxies was located. She sat down surrounded by the ten bunnies that had followed her into the room and looked at the maps. She took the band out of her hair, let her pony tail fall to her shoulders, and closed her eyes. The cursor began moving by itself on the map; it stopped on the galaxy of the Algeans. The galaxy grew larger and soon filled the whole room. She closed her eyes again and let her mind move from planet to planet until she found what she was looking for; two huge plant fleets holding position with all the ships in formation. She looked closer and saw that they were loaded with anti-matter missiles already charged and ready for launch. She listened in on the transmissions between those two fleets and the fleet at the planet being harvested. They were planning a trap. She thought about what she should do and decided that this was information she needed to share with her father but first she was going to ask her mother if that was misusing her talents. She walked into her mother’s office carrying her favorite bunny where Danielle was meeting with Leila and Eric about expanding the west wing of the castle. She stood there and waited for them to finish their work. Leila was saying, “I think we can complete the plans within two months and, oh, hi, Rose. Is there something you need?”
“I need to ask Mommy a question.” Rose said softly.
Danielle looked at Rose and started to tell her to wait until later but noticed that Rose had her big girl look on her face. “Leila, will you and Eric excuse me for just a moment?”
“Certainly, Your Majesty.”
Danielle walked over to Rose and took her hand and then walked out of the office into the reading room. “What question do you have, darling?”
Rose looked uncomfortable and looked at the floor and said, “You know how you and Daddy say I should not use my talents to take advantage of others?”
“Yes, darling, why do you ask?”
“Does that include taking advantage of the bad weeds too?”
Danielle straightened up and said quickly, “Rose, what do you know?”
“The weeds are planning a trap for Daddy and his friends.”
Danielle turned pale and said, “What kind of trap?”
“”Are you sure it’s ok to use my talent if it hurts the weeds?”
“Absolutely, Rose, especially if your Father in danger.”
Rose smiled and said, “I thought so but I wanted to make sure. The weeds have two very big groups of ships waiting to attack Daddy when he goes to help those people.”
“Tag,” Danielle thought, “I need you right now,”
Tag was sitting in his command chair on board the Retribution talking with Sung Lea again to see if she had seen any new visions of the upcoming attack and he did not want to be interrupted. “Can it wait, Darling?”
“Absolutely not; stop what you’re doing, pay attention and stop your planned jump immediately.” Danielle said in a stern tone.
Tag looked at his com and said, “Sung Lea, I apologize but I have an emergency call I need to take. I’ll contact you in a few moments.” Sung Lea nodded and disappeared off his screen. He then turned to Ron-Dar and said, “Put the countdown on hold until I order otherwise.” Ron-Dar looked startled but turned and issued the order over the general fleet channel. “Danielle, what’s going on,” he thought at his wife.
“Tag, Rose sees two huge Algean fleets preparing to jump in and attack your ships when you jump to the harvesting system.”
Tag sat straight up in his chair and thought, “Rose, what do you see?”
“May I show you my mind picture, Daddy?”
“Show your Mother and me, Rose.”
Suddenly Tag and Danielle could see the two huge Plant Fleets waiting in formation. Danielle said, “Oh my god. How many ships are there in those fleets, Tag?”
Tag said, “It looks like more than a million ships in each fleet. With close to half a million ships at the planet being harvested, they total close to two and half million.”
“Tag, you can’t lead our fleet into that trap,” Danielle thought.
“Rose, how did you see those fleets?”
Rose looked guilty and said, “I could feel you feeling bad about your trip for the last three days and I thought about why you should feel bad; I could sense that it had something to do with the weeds. So I took a look around their home stars and my attention was taken to those ships.”
“I was feeling bad about this attack, Danielle, and I couldn’t explain why. Now I know. If that many ships spread out and then jumped in on top of us and hit our screens with energy beams to stop us from jumping; we would have lost our fleet. I expected a big response from the Algeans but I planned to launch our weapons at the ships jumping in anyway and try to cut down on their reserves. With that many ships jumping in on us, if we had hesitated to jump away as soon as a star drive was detected, well, we would lose our fleet. Rose, if you see anything that you think is important about the Plants, please tell me as soon as you know,’
Rose smiled, “Ok, Daddy, I will.”
Danielle picked Rose up and hugged her tightly. “Next time don’t wait to be noticed either. Come straight to me and get my attention.”
“I will, Mommy.” Rose felt better and now knew she could exercise some of her talents against the weeds without worrying about doing anything wrong.
Tag pressed his command frequency and got Dorg, Mikado, and Chen on his display. “Change of plans, gentlemen.”
Dorg looked at Tag like he was crazy, “It’s too late to change our plans this late.”
“Admiral, the Plants are going to jump two million ships in on our fleet as soon as we emerge from null space.”
The three Stars Realm Officers looked stunned. Then Dorg said, “Ok, what do we do?”
Tag looked at the three and said, “We still need to try our new jump system and we should at least use the ships we’ve gathered. We will jump to the system going thru each of the five jumps we’ve left penetrators and drop off enough of our stores to supplement them so that there are 300,000 in each system. Then we will jump into the harvesting system and upon emergence fire every penetrator we have left. We will also fire all of our hornets at that shell of missiles around the bulge the harvesters will be attempting to jump from. We’ll time our jump with the harvesters getting close to the jump limit; as soon as we fire our weapons, we will immediately begin jumping thru the five exit systems as quickly as possible. Impress on your ship commanders that they will only have ten seconds to empty their magazines before Ron-Dar jumps us all away, so make it good. Tresk will time his jump into the system three seconds after we jump. Mikado, how long is it before those harvesters reach the bulge?”
“Forty five minutes sir.”
“Notify all ships we will be jumping to system five in one minute; also notify them to eject the appropriate number of penetrators. It won’t be a long party, gentlemen, but it shoul
d be a loud one.”
Chen and Mikado got on their coms and began issuing orders. Tag sat back in his chair and noticed that the bad feeling had disappeared. Thank God for my daughter, she’s the strongest weapon we have and she’s not even seven yet. He smiled and thought, “Love will find a way.”
Rose thought back to him, “And I love you, too, Daddy.”
Tag smiled and watched the countdown.
The Leader of the New Half Fleet watched as the harvesters approached the bulge of the power missiles. His sensor officer looked up and said, “There are no Stranger ships on my screen, leader.”
“Are the two whole fleets ready to jump as soon as we detect them?”
“Yes they are, Leader. Do you think the Strangers will come?”
“Oh, they’ll come. When they do all our ships in this system and the two whole fleets will jump in on top of them and hit them with beams so they can’t escape. We need to capture one of their ships to see how they are able to do the things we’ve seen.”
“Why don’t we have the two whole fleets here waiting on them?”
‘Because then they wouldn’t come. Somehow they are able to see us and I want to make sure they come.”
“Well, if they are coming, they should be arriving now; the harvesting ships are only moments from the jump limit.”
The Half Fleet Leader started to respond but his sensor tool said, “Thousands of ships breaking into normal space just outside the null band.”
“Order the two whole fleets to jump,” the Half fleet Leader ordered and then looked at the screen where he saw thousands of the Stranger’s ships break into normal space and fire millions of those energy missiles. Then as soon as they appeared they jumped away.”
Right behind the Strangers disappearance, the two whole fleets emerged from null space. “Order them to follow the jump tracks.”
“They all left on the same track, Leader.”
“All the better, maybe we can get them in a group, go after them now.”