by Saxon Andrew
The Fleet Director stared at Sam and didn’t know how to answer. Sam said, “This Tronan was the first of your species to take possession of a planet and has established himself in this place. That gives him the right to be a Prime Director. At least it does on his planet. Do you disagree?” The Fleet Director hesitated and Sam said, “If you do, you will die.”
Acree nodded, “I will not accept you on my planet unless you swear your allegiance to me as your Prime Director. Honestly, I hope you refuse. We’re happier than we’ve ever been and in the best health of our lives. You will be an interruption to what we’ve found.”
The Fleet Director stared at the young Tronan and saw his skin tone was perfect. His muscles were larger than any adult and he exuded charisma. He looked across the bridge and the young female Weapons Director and saw her fear. He looked at the other members of his crew and saw that it was the older crewmembers that showed no fear. They had lived their lives and it was clear they were…weary of constant war and death. Could he submit to this young Tronan? He leaned forward and asked, “If I agree to swear loyalty to you, what would happen next?”
Acree rolled his eyes, “I haven’t really thought that through. I never considered you would.”
Sam said, “You will leave your ships in shuttles and go to the place on the planet your Prime Director assigns you.”
The Fleet Director stared at them in silence and said, “What about my warships. Were you being honest about keeping them in the event we’re able to go back one day?”
Acree jerked his head toward Sam and heard him say, “You will never be able to reach them. We will remove the filament in this system and it would take you more than a hundred years to move through normal space to their location.”
“And you won’t use them against my civilization?”
“They have nothing I can use.”
The Science Officer said, “How can you trust them, Fleet Director?”
“Did you not see how many ships were damaged during our fight? They can inspect as many of those as they choose and learn everything our ships could show them.”
The Science Director shrugged, “You are correct.”
“So, what purpose does it serve to destroy our ships?”
“It might slow them…slightly.”
The Fleet Director snorted, “That’s not a good enough reason to destroy them.”
One of the Ship Directors said over the channel, “Are you seriously considering this offer?”
The Fleet Director smiled, “I have a Weapon’s Director who has never had a family.” The Fleet Director looked at her. “I think she should have the opportunity. However, no one will be forced to follow me. All of you who are unwilling to move to this new world will be allowed to take a shuttle to the ship that has sustained the most damage and blow it up.”
Silence descended on the channel and the Fleet Director said, “You will poll your crews and present me with the names of those that are unwilling to…” He paused and looked at Acree on the monitor, “start a new existence.” The Fleet Director stood up and crossed his arms on his chest. “Those of you who will accept our new Prime Director will now stand and swear with me.”
Acree watched the Fleet Director state the words that bound him to follow his orders. At the end, Acree said, “I welcome you to our community. I really never thought you would be capable of changing your patterns but it appears my friend was right.”
The Fleet Director lowered his arms and asked, “About what?”
Acree smiled, “You’re never too old to learn something new. I’ll be sending you instructions on what to bring with you on the shuttles along with coordinates on where to land. You should start moving every portable blaster you have to the shuttles along with as much clothing as possible.”
“I will do as you order, Prime Director.”
Sam said, “Fleet Director, we will allow you to bring your ships close to the planet and allow you to use your shuttles to make multiple trips to your ships. Leave enough of your crew on board to move them back to where they’re currently located. We will bring them on one of our ships to go to the planet afterwards.”
Acree looked at Sam, “Thank you.”
Sam nodded and Angel hugged him, “I love you so much!”
Sam returned her hug and smiled, “It’s your heart that’s taught me how to do the right thing.”
The Fleet Director heard them and sat back in his chair. This was the right thing to do. If he went back, he and his crews would be -executed for their failure. If he ordered his fleets to self-destruct, they would be dead. Doing this just to spite the Prime Director made it worth doing. His life in the military was ending. Perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. If this young Tronan Director was right…time would tell.
Chapter Twenty-three
Four weeks later, Sam looked around the conference room and knew this wasn’t going to be fun but there was no avoiding it. Pretty much all the major players in the Combined Forces were present. What was surprising was the Insectoid King was present. This was a first; it was the only time Gem could remember that the monarch was allowed to leave the Royal Planet during their rule.
The Dragon Queen’s Monarch was present representing her and Kel was also there to assist him. Of course, Gregor, Kaylee, Gem, Ana, Leonidas, Desiree, and Gregory and Heather from Romania were in attendance. Angel sat next to Sam and Elena was sitting with other members of the Senior Military staff in the rear of the room. Embree and Shelly sat in the back row along with the other Fleet Admirals from the various species represented.
• • •
Randy looked to his left and said to Elena, “I’m extremely impressed with your actions during the Tronan Invasion. You made a huge difference in defeating them.”
Elena turned red and smiled, “Thank you, very much. I just tried to survive and do my duty.”
Emily leaned forward and said, “That’s what most heroes do. You deserve your praise.”
Randy fidgeted and Emily said, “Sit still.”
“I still have some scouts out there fighting. I need to be with them.”
“They’re too far away for you to make a difference. This meeting is more important.”
“But it’s Gloria and Tommy’s scouts.”
“I know and I trust they will make the right decisions to survive. You need to focus on what’s happening. The future of our armed forces will be decided here not across the universe.”
Randy nodded and looked at Sam as he looked around the room. He said, “What do you think is going to happen?” Emily shrugged and they heard Elena say, “We will not be able to stand up to them.”
They turned to Elena and she looked them in the eyes, “You know it but just refuse to acknowledge it.”
Randy stared at her and then exhaled slowly, “You’re right.” They heard a tone and looked toward the front as the room grew silent and everyone went to their chairs.
Sam waited for everyone to be seated and said, “I want to thank all of you for coming. The purpose of this meeting is to make decisions on what happens next. All of you have been sent all the recordings of our recent confrontation with the Tronan Fleets and have filled out the questionnaire that came with it. I am going to put each question on the main monitor and the central computer will put your answers under them. We’ll examine them and attempt to come up with a consensus.” Sam pressed a button and the first question appeared, “How did our fleets perform in handling the Tronan Invasion?”
Everyone stared at the monitor and saw a massive list of answers under the question. Sam looked out at the attendees and said, “If we try to look at each answer, we’ll still be here when the Tronan return. What I’ve done is to have the computer divide the answers into two groups; one group is composed of the attendees present that did not participate in the fight and the second group is those that did fight against the Tronan. The computer took all the answers and did an analysis of them. From that analysis
, a consensus was made.”
The Insectoid King lifted his arm and Sam said, “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Why did you do that?”
“It’s been my experience that someone standing outside an event often has a different perspective from those involved in it.”
The King replied, “That has also been my experience as well.”
Sam pressed a button and two columns appeared under the first question. One had Participants at the top and the other had observers. Sam said, “Let’s place the consensus of those that participated in the fight up first.”
Three concise statements appeared:
The plan worked flawlessly and the Tronan were defeated.
We learned how to defeat their Warships.
It is possible to defeat them on the ground.
Sam looked out at the gathering and said, “I’m going to put the consensus of those that did not participate now. Before I do that, it should be understood that everything the observers say was also spoken by the participants but not as much as the three statements you see now.” Sam pressed a button and three statements appeared:
It takes too many warships to attack each of the Tronan Vessels.
The removal of a filament will not work against them again.
We will lose the coming conflict and plans must be made for survivors from each planet to escape.
The room was absolutely silent. Sam looked from the monitor to the assembly, “Everyone here agrees with the last answer. The military just refuse to admit it to themselves because they have to maintain a positive attitude about having to confront the next invasion.”
Sam paused and said, “We learned that our Scouts can destroy a Tronan Warship. However, once they do that, the Tronan will activate their blaster barrages and their effectiveness will end. It took more than twenty-thousand of our warships to defeat a single Tronan Fleet of just a thousand of their advanced warships. Trapping four of their fleets in Heavens Star System is what made that possible. If we had to confront all twenty-five thousand Tronan Warships, we would have probably failed.”
Leonidas raised his arm and Sam nodded. “We learned that our silver coated warships can attack them and win.”
Sam stared at Leonidas and then slowly shook his head.
“The problem is that we only have about ten-thousand of them,” Gregory said. “I’ve looked at the scouting reports from the Tronan Sector and I expect the next attack to send between one and three-million warships. The Tronan will outnumber our coated warships three-hundred to one and I’m reasonably certain they will ram our ships. The metal may hold up but the crews inside them probably won’t. They can also use two-hundred ships to take on our warships while the other hundred invade our planets. If they destroy our home worlds, what will happen to our warships?”
The Dragon Monarch said, “That is also what we have determined. We’re currently working like all of us building warships to meet them but I expect they will be back in less than two years. Even if we double our current inventory of warships, and I sincerely doubt that is possible, they will still be hopelessly outnumbered.”
The Insectoid King said, “There’s also no possible way we can defeat them if they land forces on our planets.” The King looked at Gregor, “Do you disagree with what I’m saying?”
Sam said, “We’re getting ahead of ourselves but Gregor, please answer His Majesty’s question before we proceed.”
Gregor looked at Kaylee and she nodded. He stood up and said, “I’ve examined the scouting reports from Tronan Territory as well. I’ve seen the fleets they send to invade civilized planets. They usually have two thousand transports with each fleet carrying thirty-thousand plus warriors on board. That’s sixty-million warriors they can use to subdue a planet.” Gregor looked around the room and said, “I just sent you a recording that I received from the Dojuit Commander of the Colony Ship that shows what they do if they encounter high resistance. They just nuke the defenders and don’t appear to be concerned about any of their forces lost.” Gregor hesitated and said, “Our scouting reports estimate the Tronan have more than ten-thousand fleets. If they send three-million of their warships, that equates to six hundred fleets which only represents six-percent of their total inventory. I know we’re discussing confronting them on the ground but these figures also indicate that 36 billion warriors will be coming with them.”
Gregor looked around the room and shrugged, “I only see four planets represented here. You know the Tronan will target the planets resisting them first. They could land nine-billion troops on each of our planets. Our population on Bellingham is a little over a billion. We could not stand up to that large of an invasion force.”
The Dragon Monarch said, “You can remove the filament to your planet and be safe.” The giant Dragon looked at Sam, “Is it possible to remove the filaments to our planets?”
Sam looked at Angel and nodded. She stood up and looked around the room, “It is possible to remove one filament in a planetary system…”
The Insectoid King said loudly, “But we have ten filaments!!”
The Dragon Monarch said forcefully, “We have six!”
Gregory and Heather remained silent but new Sam and Angel were aware that Romania had twelve filaments.
Angel stood calmly and waited for the shouting to die. Finally, the room was quiet. Angel looked around and said, “Before I was interrupted, I was saying that only one filament in each planetary system can be removed safely.”
She saw the planet leaders start to shout again and Sam said into his microphone, “I intend no disrespect but perhaps you may want to let Angel finish what she’s presenting before asking questions.”
The room was suddenly silent. Angel took a breath and said, “What must be understood about the filaments that exist in Other Space is that they are in a harmonious balance. The vast network of filaments is fragile. It must be remembered that the filaments that are in each of your systems also connect with another star. This is often forgotten because we seldom follow one filament from one end to the other. In the case of Romania, they have twelve filaments that connect with twelve other stars in their galaxy. If you remove one filament, the star at Romania along with the star it connects to will be out of balance. If you remove all twelve, twelve other stars will be out of balance. That can cause a catastrophic failure of the filaments that are located at those stars. One of those stars could have twenty filaments and twenty more stars could go out of balance.”
Gregory said, “What are you saying, Angel?” Everyone looked at Gregory and he shrugged, “We need to cut to the chase.”
The attendees turned back to Angel and she said, “I can remove all your filaments at your planets but, if I do, the entire filament network in this sector of the universe could start cascading and go down. Faster than light travel will cease to exist, not only for your planets but the billion other civilizations that use the filaments in this sector.”
Gregory shook his head, “Would it be possible to go to the stars where our filaments connect and create a new filament to balance it?”
“Where would I send it. If I send it to a star that’s balanced, the new filament would only cause it to be unbalanced. You have to realize that the system is currently balanced and knowing what stars could handle a new filament is something I am not able to do.”
Angel hesitated and said, “The only reason the filament at Bellingham can be removed is that it connects to a type O star that has more than four-hundred filaments. Bellingham’s filament represents less than two tenths of one percent of the filament’s total energy. It affects the balance of the Type O Star slightly but not enough to pose a problem.”
The room was silent and Gem asked, “What about removing the filament the Tronan fleets take to our planets. If you remove it when they’re halfway, it would take them almost a hundred-years to arrive at our planets or make it back to the intersection.”
Sam
took the microphone from Angel, “Gem, if they come with six-hundred fleets, they’ll be sending them in on every filament in your system.”
Gem stared at Sam and then said, “You’re right; it’s what I would do if I had that many warships to use.”
Desiree asked, “Angel, what do you see happening if all the filaments around our planets are removed.”
Angel took the microphone from Sam and said, “Millions of civilizations will fall back into barbarism. They depend on trade from other civilizations and they’ll be forced to fight for limited resources on their planets. The sector we live in will fall apart and trillions will die.”
“Will this go on forever?”
Angel sighed, “Desiree, the more I learn about the filaments, the more I’m convinced that they are not a natural product of the universe. Someone, or something, put them in place who knows how long ago. Once they’re gone, they won’t be coming back. Planets will be locked to their surfaces until another means of faster than light travel is discovered in the future.”
Embree said from the back of the room, “Angel, if the filaments cascade and disappear. Could you create a filament to one of our planet’s star? I mean, one filament wouldn’t throw them out of balance, would it?”
Angel’s eyes narrowed and she slowly shook her head, “I have no idea, Embree. The only way to find out is to give it a try after they’re gone.”
Embree sighed, “That would be like shooting yourself with a blaster to determine if the undercoating works after the surface of your armor is gone.”
Angel smiled slightly “That is a good analogy, Em. However, even if I could do it, what about the trillions that will die? Are we willing to turn our backs on them?”
The Insectoid King waved his clawed arm in the air, “I have no concern about them.”
Ana leaned over and whispered in Gem’s ear, “At least your species is consistent if nothing else.” Gem’s face turned red. She was right.