by Saxon Andrew
Desiree nodded, “We really didn’t think they’d pull it off.”
Randy turned to her, “Why not?”
“This planet is covered with some rather giant carnivores. I guess we undersold their survival skills.”
“How can they survive. I thought they had to eat intelligent life to survive?” Sam asked.
Leonidas shrugged, “They thought the same thing. It appears both of us were wrong about that.”
Emily stared at Randy and saw him struggling, “Are you saying that these Tronan were children?”
“They pretty much still are,” Angel said quickly.
Randy looked at Sam and said, “Sir, I think I’d rather take my chances at defeating that armor than doing something that would kill these children.” At that moment, Emily saw into Randy’s heart and realized he was much more than she thought.
“That’s not your decision to make, Admiral.”
“Do I get a vote in this?” Sam stared at him and nodded. “Well, my vote is to not harm them.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed, “You’d rather endanger your crews instead?”
“If it means killing children, I do.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because we’ve chosen to be warriors and if killing children is required to do the job, I’d rather be unemployed.”
“Admiral, if we’re forced to attack their planets, a lot more children that these are going to die,” Sam said sternly.
“And that’s part of war. We’ll be fighting against warriors who are trying to kill us. These children are defenseless.”
Jek looked at Randy, “Are you too soft for this job? The fleet these so-called children were with destroyed Heaven.”
“Did they take part in the destruction…Sir?” Randy asked with biting sarcasm. “And if you think I’m too soft, perhaps you’ll remember that I was willing to die to make sure you and Jel made it back.”
Jek stared at him and sighed, “I apologize, Admiral. I just don’t share your feelings for these survivors.”
“Perhaps that’s because you don’t have any children of your own.”
Jek smiled slightly, “You don’t either.”
“I don’t need to have them to know that the innocent should never be killed needlessly.”
Sam looked at Randy, “What do you mean needlessly.”
“May I assume that these children need the ship to survive?” Sam nodded. “Why, it’s basically a derelict?” Randy asked.
“They need the reactors on the warship to keep their shuttles and weapon’s powered,” Sam responded.
“Then give them a reactor and surround it with a force field on the planet so it can’t be harmed.”
Sam’s eyes opened wide and Angel said, “That is the answer to this, Sam.”
Suddenly the wall speaker said, “Welcome back to our home. Is there a reason you’ve returned?”
“There is. We’ve discovered that we are going to have to destroy your vessel.”
There was a long moment of silence and they heard, “Why is that?”
“We are going to be attacked by your civilization and we find we have to trial one of our weapons to see if it will function properly against the fleets that are coming to attack us.”
“Then take it.”
Everyone in the room was surprised by the Tronan’s comment and Sam replied, “How will you survive without it.”
“We’ll just have to find a way. If using our ship will help you against our former civilization, then we want you to use it.”
“How can you say that?” Jek asked.
“We’ve learned that everything we’ve been told by our leaders was a lie. We no longer need the food transformers to survive. We can live on the plants and meat we gather on the planet and it showed us that our civilization is nothing more than barbarians that kill for no good reason.”
Sam smiled and said, “If we survive the attack, we can provide you transportation to return to your civilization if you want.”
“We will never go back. This is our home and we detest what we were being made to be. Take the ship and we’ll find a way to survive. We’re trained the predators that attacking us is certain death and they stay away from us for the most part. We’ll just have to develop other weapons to keep them at bay.”
Randy looked at Sam, “We can remove the stardrive from my scout ship and they can use its reactor to power their weapons. The force field will keep the predators away. We can also disable the dark matter thrusters and leave the air thrusters operational. So, they can move around the planet.”
“What about the blasters?” Jek asked.
Randy quickly said, “Remove the fins from the front of the scout and we’ll be able to detect it easily enough. It would never be able to get close enough to be a danger. Without the dark matter system, it won’t be able to leave the planet’s atmosphere. I suspect they could use them to help insure their survival.”
“What is he talking about?” The Tronan asked.
Sam made a decision, “We’re going to replace your vessel with a small ship that will stay with you on the planet. It has a long-life reactor you can use to power your weapons and any other systems you might be using. It also has two very powerful blasters along with a force field that will keep the predators away.”
“How much area can the force field cover?”
Sam looked at Desiree and she shrugged. Randy said, “If you extend it to maximum coverage, it should surround an area about five- hundred yards square.”
The young Tronan Leader said, “Now that would be a real gift. It would cover our community and allow us peace where all of us could sleep at night. The predators avoid us during the day but do come around at night.”
Sam looked at Jek. Jek shook his head and said, “I was wrong about them. We should do this even if we don’t take their ship.”
“Take it,” the Tronan said. “The only time we go back to it is to power our shuttles and weapons. We all live on the planet now.”
Sam smiled, “We’ll come back in a week with the ship we’re going to leave with you. During that time, you should take everything of value off your vessel and move it to the surface.”
“I want to thank you again for sparing us, I know that had to cause you issues when you chose to allow us to live. And thank you for helping us again. If there is anything that we can do to assist you, please ask.”
Randy asked, “Is there any place on your vessel that is a real weakness we can exploit?”
“The only place I was told to defend against all attacks was the nuclear missile launchers on the bottom of my ship.”
“Why is that?” Desiree asked.
“Because they have armed missiles in the launch tubes at all times. If a blaster makes it through the hull covering them, they will detonate. That’s why the number of blasters and scanners surrounding them are more numerous than any other place on the hull.”
“Is that area more heavily armored than the reactors behind the bridge?” Emily asked.
“No. The missiles are fifty yards long and additional armor would prevent their systems from functioning properly. The armor surrounding the launchers is the thinnest on the ship.”
Sam smiled, “We’ll be back in a week. See you then.”
“Thank you, again.”
Sam broke the connection and looked at Randy, “Take your scout out and look at the bottom of that vessel. Send a feed to us so we can see what you find.”
Randy and Emily left the bridge and Jek said, “Who would believe this?” He looked at Sam and said, “He was being honest.”
• • •
Sam and Emily flew out of the Sword’s landing by and approached the giant vessel hanging in orbit. San flew the scout over the top of the giant derelict, moved under the vessel, and stopped. Sam said, “Computer, activate the hull spotlights and illuminate the bottom of the hull. The bright spotlights flashed up and Randy sai
d, “Oh my God!” Directly above them they saw the warheads of hundreds of missiles slightly above the missing hull that had been blasted away.
Sam’s eyes flew wide open and Angel said, “It’s miracle we didn’t ignite them when we originally blasted the hull away!”
Randy said over the communicator, “It appears they deactivated them when they left the ship. None of them are showing any power now.”
Sam shook his head, “I don’t think they were deactivated when we scorched the hull. It appears we have our answer on where to attack them.”
Leonidas nodded, “We’ll leave this ship here.”
Angel said, “But…”
Leo interrupted her, “We’ll still bring them the ship. They deserve it for their assistance. Does anyone not agree?”
Everyone remained silent and looked at Jek. He raised his arms, “Hey, I said I agree with you. I’m really curious now about what kind of world they’re going to create here.”
Sam laughed, “I think we all feel that way Jek. Will you and Jel bring the ship back to them?”
“I’ll need Angel to come and activate the filament so we can get here.”
“No problem. I’ll be glad to do it.”
Sam looked at Rangel, “Take us home.” Delilah’s Sword turned, after Randy’s scout entered the landing bay, and went into other space to enter the filament. An hour later, the filament disappeared.
• • •
Gloria stared at the monitor and shook her head, “It does appear I am brilliant.”
Pat rolled her eyes, “Don’t let you head get too big for your helmet. That wasn’t a difficult thing to see.”
“I find it interesting that they started this line of communication several light years outside their territory,” Gloria remarked.
Pat shrugged, “They’re only using twenty warships. I guess they didn’t want to waste ships doing this. I count about a hundred long range communication probes being placed between each of those manned warships.” She paused and looked up at the ceiling, “This line is pretty fragile. Take out just one probe and it’s broken.”
“They could launch another one and have it in place in less than a minute.”
Pat looked at Gloria and stuck out her tongue.” Smarty! What about taking out just one of those warships?”
Gloria smiled, “Now that would pose a larger problem but the ships on either side of the one that’s destroyed could launch a probe to fill in its place in the line. Using the filament, it would be back up in less than an hour or so.”
“So, the only effective way to remove this communication channel is to take out at least five or six warships in the center and then work on the two ends.”
“That’s how I see it, Pat. Put all this information in a message and squeal burst it to Tommy.”
“You know the Tronan have to be detecting those squeals.”
“Probably, but they’ve entered unknown space and don’t know anything about what civilizations exist on their route. The squeals happen so fast that they won’t be able to get a direction on them. However, we’ll need to back off on using them unless something important is discovered.”
Pat nodded and sent the message. She looked up and Gloria saw her eyes narrow. “What’s bothering you?”
Pat said, “Computer, you have the Tronan Translation Program in your data banks, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“During the time we’ve been pacing these ships, have they sent any communications?”
“Nothing of importance.”
Gloria sat up straight in her chair as Pat said, “I want you to start playing all of the messages you’ve intercepted starting with the first one.”
A voice came over the wall speaker, “This is going to be a terrible mission. I truly hope I don’t die of boredom.”
“The Major Fleet Leader will personally kill you if that happens.”
“Yeah, I guess.” There was a few minutes of silence and then they heard, “Why do you think he chose to come out here and personally lead the mission? The Prime Director didn’t order him to go.”
“I’ve heard that if the communication line is interrupted, the Prime Director will execute him. I suppose that would be very difficult to do if he’s out of communication range. He’s here trying to improve his survival chances.” After another pause they heard, “What do you think he will do if the communication line is broken?”
The voice said, “One thing he won’t do.”
“What is that?”
“He won’t go back. He’ll use the fleets to start a new empire for himself in that new space.”
“I’m glad I’m not out there with him. I’d hate to not go back to my family if that happened.”
“Me, too. But we’d have no choice but to do it. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”
There was a pause and the second voice said, “Uhhh…it just dawned on me that if the communication line is broken, it might be more dangerous to be where we are than with the Fleet Director.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that!”
“Sorry.”
• • •
Gloria said, “Stop program.” The wall speaker went silent. Gloria stared at Pat and said, “Computer, why did you not see this conversation as important?”
“No tactical or strategic information was covered.”
“Computer, what do you think that Tronan Fleet Leader would do if we decided to take out his communications now?” Gloria asked.
“There was a very long pause and the Computer answered, “I made a mistake.”
“Tell me your answer, Computer.”
“The Tronan Leader commanding this mission would change course and look to find a place to conquer in our space. Any plans we made to defeat him would be useless if he changes his mission.”
Gloria nodded, “So it’s critical that his lines of communication remain open until he commits himself at Heaven’s Intersection.”
“Yes, it is,” the Computer answered.
“I want every communication you intercept played over the wall speaker while it’s taking place!”
“Order acknowledged, Captain.”
Gloria looked at Pat, “I want a copy of that conversation along with our analysis sent to Tommy.”
“You don’t think the Leadership Team will attempt to take out the communication line, do you.”
“Oh, I know they’re going to take it out and they’ll probably do it before those fleets arrive at Heaven’s intersection. That would be a huge mistake.”
“Why? If they’re already close to the intersection, why wouldn’t they go through with the mission.”
Gloria smiled at Pat, “So put yourself in that Tronan Fleet Leader’s position. You’re moving in to investigate how more than two-hundred of his warships went missing. He’s probably already stressed and nervous about what he’s going to find. Then he discovers that the communication line has been broken and he knows that even if he defeats whatever he finds at Heaven’s intersection, he’s going to be executed when he goes back to Tronan Space.” Pat opened her mouth to object and Gloria interrupted her, “It appears that Prime Director, or whatever he calls himself announced he was going to kill that Fleet Leader and I don’t think someone in absolute authority is going to change their mind even if the victim is successful.” Pat closed her mouth. “So, he’ll back off from Heaven’s intersection, where all our ships are gathered, and go out into our sector and look for places to start his empire.”
“You sound pretty certain about that,” Pat remarked.
“You need only remember one thing.”
“What is that?”
“How many commercial starships are those Tronan Fleets going to see on their way to Heaven? The Tronan Fleet Leader will know that our area of space is full of targets to conquer.”
“Do you think he will tell the Tronan Leadership about that?”
“Would you, if you w
ere under a possible execution order? That is what will tell us he’s going to call it off if the communication line is broken. If he doesn’t tell his leaders that this sector of the universe is an unbelievable opportunity for conquest, then we’ll know he’s planning to go out on his own if something happens to his communications.”
“Why wouldn’t he do it anyway?”
“Because his crews wouldn’t support him. I believe that he must have an acceptable reason to change the mission and I also believe his fleets are loyal to him first and the Tronan Leadership second. But it’s like those two said, no one wants to never see their family again. They’ll have to have a very good reason to oppose their Fleet Leader. Him being executed is one they will accept.”
Pat stopped pressing buttons and sent the message. Suddenly, the wall speaker activated and they listened to another Tronan conversation.
Chapter Thirteen
Randy looked at Sam, “Sir, I’m worried about my two ships currently following the Tronan Fleets.”
Sam lowered his eyes and said, “They knew what they were getting into.”
“That doesn’t mean they have to die doing this, Sir!”
“What are you suggesting, Admiral?”
“Sir, I don’t see any way I can get the scout out that is currently located between the Tronan Fleets and their communication vessels. They would have to fly through the Tronan Fleets in front of them to make it back to our space.”
Sam nodded, “I’ve reached the same conclusion. The power of the scanning field around those fleets is too powerful for it to sneak through.”
“However, the scout has to be resupplied in about six-months or they’re going to run out of food. We can send another scout with supplies on the other side of the filament that shouldn’t be detected. I also believe that at some point you are going to want to remove those communication ships. Having more scouts there will make that task easier.”
“We won’t be doing that until the Tronan Fleets commit themselves at Heaven’s Intersection!” Sam responded sharply.