by Saxon Andrew
George sighed, “So what are you suggesting?”
“We go and scout the Red Sector for them and see what they’re up against. We still don’t know enough to make a good decision.”
George looked at Chris and Jillian, “Will you go out and take a look at what’s going on?”
“We’ll take the Jukebox and the Ninja. We’ll collect what information we can and get it back to you.”
George looked at Dolly who was nodding and said, “Then get on the way and keep me posted. We’ll meet again when you return.”
Kenny and Gibbs said, “What do you want us to do?”
“Go to our new galaxy and give your sailors some time to settle into their new homes. Just make sure you keep your fleets at a ready level. We just don’t know how we’ll be operating.”
The two admirals nodded and disappeared from the display. George said, “What are you going to do, RV?”
“We’re going home as well to see Leigh Ann. We’ll stay in touch with the activities taking place in M-87 as well as the Jukebox and Ninja.”
“Keep Dolly and I informed as well.”
“You know I will.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The first Captain sat in his chair and looked at the display with twenty ships formed around his vessel. “We will be jumping into the Red Sector momentarily. We will not be taking any small craft with us. That is a weapon we want to hold back until their invasion begins. What I want you to do is jump away as soon as their ships arrive and drop as many sensor buoys as possible as you run. You have a reading on their civilized planets, so make your jumps through them so we can get as much information as possible from the buoys. If a ship gets close, fire on it and see how our beams match up to theirs. When they get too close, jump toward the core and attempt to escape. Any questions?”
The Captain was greeted with silence and said, “Jump in one minute from now!”
The Captain thought about how these twenty ships were chosen by lot. He guessed that luck was just not on their side. Oh well, now was as good as any time to fight his new ship. He watched the countdown and then saw his pilot push the jump button. The twenty ships appeared in normal space near a civilized planet and the immediate frequencies being activated around them let them know they had been spotted. The Captain waited and said, “Steady. Wait until they arrive.” The Captain was surprised by how long it was taking the Red Ships to arrive.
Suddenly thousands of Red Ships broke into normal space and the chase was on. The twenty white ships jumped in twenty different directions and the thousands of Red Ships gave chase. “Did you drop a buoy?”
“I did, Captain.”
The white ship broke into another civilized system and dropped another buoy just as it jumped away. The Red Ships were right behind the fleeing ship but were not getting any closer. The Captain watched his scanner and said, “Make six fast jumps and release buoys as quickly as possible.” The white ship continued to run and the Red Ships were not gaining. The Captain looked at his sensor officer, “What do you make of this?”
“I’m of the impression that they are not accustomed to chasing another ship. They don’t appear to be able to read the jumps and give chase fast enough.”
The Captain thought about it and said, “I guess that makes sense. When no one has ever trespassed in your space, it might be a new experience to chase a ship. How many are still behind us giving chase?”
“I show ten ships.”
“Ummmm, this time wait for their arrival and fire our beams on the first ship to appear. Make sure we stay weightless on our arrival.”
The white ship broke into normal space and waited. Ten seconds later the ships began emerging into normal space and twenty beams were fired at the first Red Ship to appear in normal space. The ship blew up in a massive explosion. The Captain hit the thrusters just before one of the Red Ships fired a massive beam at his ship. The beam was more than a mile wide and pegged the power meter on the scanner. “Get us out of here!”
The white ship jumped away an instant before eight more beams ripped through the space it had just occupied. “Did you get a recording of that?”
“I did, Captain.”
“Get out of this sector and see if you can get us back safely. We need to get this information back.”
The white ship did a hundred more jumps before it managed to escape the chasing ships. Only three ships of the twenty that went in escaped. All of them managed to launch hundreds of sensor buoys.
• • •
“Chris, it looks like the Red Sector has a war going on along its border away from the two sectors.”
“I wonder how long this has been going on.”
“Let’s jump away and start seeing where all this started. That war may be what’s kept the Red Sector at bay for so long.”
“Any word from the Ninja?”
“Phil is making a wide scan of one quarter of the sector targeting the largest ship frequencies for examination. I suspect he’ll have a sample of what we can expect in the way of numbers shortly.”
“Standby, I’m jumping out a couple of million light years.”
“I have the fields on.”
“Jump is initiated.”
The Jukebox disappeared from normal space.
• • •
“Phil, this is a perfect mechanism to spy on someone.”
“I know. All we do is capture the light that left their galaxy and focus it into an image. There are no beams or scans done where they could be detected; this is pretty much undetectable.”
“How close can we go before we’re detected?”
“We really don’t know but anything outside a light year would be safe for the Ninja.”
“How about the Jukebox?”
Phil shrugged, “Now that’s a different story. The Ninja is mainly built with hull materials that absorb any type of scan. We won’t energize our force field unless the computer detects another ship. We’re less than a quarter the size of the Jukebox and we only have one reactor that is laid horizontally in the ship. The shielding around it prevents its detection. Why do you ask?”
“The probes around M-87 just detected their activity. We may not see anything of interest unless we’re willing to move to within a light week.”
Phil slowly shook his head, “I’m not willing to do that. I know we could detect the Ninja if it came that close to our galaxy. I have to assume they could do it as well.”
“Yes, but if their scanners work at light speed, we’ll be gone before the scans arrive in their territory.”
Phil said, “Anne, we use faster than light scanners. You know that.”
“Well, yes.”
“All it takes is a scanner in normal space and the communication device in Sierra Space sending the information it receives at faster than light speeds to the receiver. The Red sector has those kinds of scanners.”
“How do you know that?”
“We’re assuming that our causing those fifty stars to go nova is what caused the Red Sector to start mobilizing against the two sectors. Are you with me?”
“I am.”
“We if that is the case, the light from the closest nova to the Red Sector won’t arrive there for another three hundred years at light speed.”
Anne took a quick breath and blew it out, “So they have sensors that can respond instantly to them if anything approaches their territory.”
“Yes; at least that’s how we see it.”
“What if you approach the receiver that’s in normal space at close to light speed? Would it see you coming in time to send a warning?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well the sensor must be at the edge of the galaxy with a free view of open space, right?”
“Yeah, ok.”
“So what if we pop into normal space four light weeks out and accelerate close to light speed and collect the light in front of us and jump away when we’re a week from the galaxy’s edge. We would arrive di
rectly behind our first image.”
“And we have to assume there is some delay while that image is sent to whoever is manning their sensor facilities.”
“We should have time to escape if there is a delay of any kind.”
Phil thought about the idea and then he said, “OH MY GOD!”
Anne looked at him sharply, “What?”
Phil hit his communication panel and RV appeared on his display, “Hello, Captain Phillips.”
“Sir, I was just talking with Lt. Hardy about how to do a quick scan of the Red Sector and we started talking about how they must have sensor buoys that transmit through Sierra Space.”
RV thought a moment and Phil continued, “If the stars going nova is what caused them to mobilize, they must have a way of scanning the Major’s sector to see those explosions in real time.”
RV nodded, “That makes sense. The light won’t arrive at their sector for hundreds of years.”
“Well if they could see the explosion, could they not also see our ships?”
RV’s expression immediately changed, “When did they first start mobilizing?”
“The probes detected it a week after the explosions. We need to know how far into the sector those probes can see.”
RV thought a moment and said, “I want you to try this first. Track the light from one of the main civilizations in the galaxy a month earlier.”
“I hope I’m wrong, Sir.”
“So do I; get on this as quickly as possible.”
• • •
Anne said, “What’s going on?”
“What if those explosions aren’t what started the Red Sector mobilizing?”
Anne thought a moment and said, “You think it was our ships that caused it.”
“If they can see the novae, they can see our ships.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We are going to jump to the point in time a month before the stars were exploded and make four jumps toward M-87 looking at the light from one of their central systems. We are going to make a high speed run collecting that light up to three weeks ago and then jump away.”
Anne leaned forward and began entering data into the navigation board. “I have a candidate and the line the light would be visible. I thought you said that was too close?”
“I did but this is something we’re going to have to risk. Put it in the board and prepare to make the jump. I’m extending the fields prior to emergence into normal space and make the run on emergence. We’ll jump in with one week separation and collect one day’s light at each jump. Plan multiple jumps for us to escape after the last one is completed.”
“I’m on it.”
• • •
Cyanna looked at RV and raised her eyebrows. RV said, “There is a possibility that the Red Sector is not attacking because of the stars we exploded.”
“What other reason would there be?” RV hesitated and Cyanna said, “Tell me!”
“They may be attacking because they were able to see our ships. Their attack may be taking place to remove us as a threat and it that’s the case; they will come looking for us.”
“We’re far enough away now that they won’t find us.”
“We’ve made our assumptions based on a very, weakened enemy in the two sectors. What if they were able to get one of their probes on the hull of one of our ships?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
RV hit his panel, “Attention all fleets. I want every square inch of the outer hulls on every ship gone over with a deep scan. I want every ship examined and I want it done now. I also want all fleets to hold their current positions and remain there until after the scans are complete.”
• • •
RV looked at Cyanna and said, “We need to talk with Boden about whether or not the Red Ship’s beams are strong enough to penetrate the planetary force fields.”
“And if they are?”
“Then Leigh Ann will stay with us onboard the Havana.”
“Is this the end of time you talk about?”
“If they have a probe on one of our ships, it very well could be.”
Cyanna looked at her board and waited hoping that no one called in. Twelve hours later her wish didn’t come true.
• • •
“Sir, we’ve found eight small devices on our ships.”
RV sat back in his chair, “Do you have any idea about how they were put there?”
“We’ve looked at the scans of our outer hull and it appears they flew in when we were taking on the survivors from the ships that were damaged in the first battle with the Majors. We had to lower our force fields to allow them to board.”
“Continue to scan your ships and I don’t want them removed yet.”
“Will do.”
Cyanna said, “Don’t want them removed?”
“Those ships have not gone to our new home yet. I need to see if any have been taken to our new galaxy.”
“What do you think?”
“I know I send Mikal and Loree’s fleets back but they were not involved in picking up survivors after the last battle with the Majors. I’m waiting on the results of their scan.”
RV and Cyanna waited and after twenty four hours more than six hundred of the small probes were discovered. One of them was on a ship in Mikal’s fleet in their new galaxy. RV shook his head and contacted George and told him what was going on. George said, “Do you think they have our new home’s location?”
“I’ve removed all of the probes from our ships and we’ve examined them thoroughly. It’s a remarkable device that is really quite ingenious. They know.”
“So what does this mean?”
“It means we are now in the pot with the other sectors. We are going to have to go after the Red Sector with our former enemies.”
“You don’t think they’ll come here first?”
“Boden tells me that the planetary force fields can hold up to their beams for an extended period. However, nothing holds up forever. They could eventually wear them down. We have to make sure they can’t get enough ships here to make that happen.”
“How do we prevent that?”
“We arm our former enemies and take the fight into the Red Sector and force them to keep most of their ships at home to defend their planets while the Majors are modifying their ships.”
“How do you intend to do that?”
“Well, we’ve collected enough of their frequencies to be able to understand their language. I’m going to kindly ask them to stay at home and if they don’t agree, I’m going to start killing their planets.”
Dolly said, “Is that a good thing to do?”
“Dolly, I understand you have a good heart. The Red Sector has emerged periodically and destroyed all life in the other sectors. Take your bleeding heart values and use them for someone that deserves them. If you’re so dense not to see this then get out of the way and shut up.”
Dolly’s expression changed to anger. George said, “He’s absolutely right, Sis. These are the real predators and they’re probably coming to kill us all. How about considering those we’re charged to defend for a change. You’re only getting in the way of us doing what needs to be done and you should know it.”
Dolly was shocked at George’s comment and then he said, “Mom is dead because of predatory civilizations. Arnold and Hemon are dead. What do you think they would be telling us to do if they were here? Yet you take the side of those attacking us. Has your brush with death made you fearful? If it has, you should get out of the way. You only make me troubled for doing what I think is necessary to protect those who elected me.” Dolly stared at George and he said, “I mean it; leave now!”
Dolly stood and walked out of the command center.
George watched her go and said, “RV, give them an opportunity to back off but if they refuse, kick them back into the Stone Age.”
• • •
RV looked at Boden on his display, “I’ve been meaning to ask you abo
ut the ship the Nexu gave us a while back. Their force fields are stronger than ours and I was hoping you had found something that would help us.”
“They do have an additional element in their reactor that we aren’t currently using, but it would lonely increase the power of our force fields fifty percent. It wouldn’t be a huge jump over what we have now and you’ve had the fleets fighting where we couldn’t update them.”
RV thought a moment, “Boden, if that new element increases the power of a main battleship fifty percent; what would it do to the new attack craft’s screen?”
Boden thought a moment and RV saw a sudden change in his expression, “The reason the increase is not that much greater in a battleship is because of the huge area it must cover. I suspect the new attack craft would be increased more than three hundred percent.”
“You’ve seen the data on the Red Ship’s beams. Would the attack craft be able to withstand that beam?”
“I don’t know but I’ll look into it immediately. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, how long will it take to update them if we need?”
“That would be easy. Just have them jump to one of our planets and we’ll inject the new element into their reactors. It could be done in less than three days.”
“There are millions of them, Boden.”
“Yes, but we have more than two hundred thousand planets. The ships will land on the surface and we’ll handle them quickly. With ten thousand engineers making the injections on each planet, we will do all of them faster than you can imagine.”
“Then I’m sending them now. If it increases the power of their force field, it’s worth doing.”