by Saxon Andrew
“The ship is rolling.”
“I see it. I’m hitting the blasters on this side before I pass.”
“They’ve launched Missiles.”
Drey felt his heart go into his throat and expected to be killed until Doc said, “the missiles are coming over the top and have us sited in.”
Drey turned his ship and flew the length of the vessel as the missiles came roaring in and gave chase. Drey fired his blaster at the giant ship and the long line of giant blasters on the side of the wounded ship began exploding. Drey saw the huge ship continuing the roll and the still functioning blasters on the bottom moved over the top and started moving down at them. “Doc, I need a target to end this. I’m going under the ships to avoid the blasters on the bottom that have rolled our way.”
• • •
Ian watched Drey fly his ship and was amazed at how fast he maneuvered to avoid the giant ship’s weapons. When the missiles were launched he stood up and held his breath. He let it out when he saw they weren’t FTL.
• • •
“I’ve put a designator on the area above their reactors.”
Drey looked through the eyepiece on his combat control helmet and saw the bright red circle on the rear of the ship. He arrived just before the ship’s defense blasters on the bottom of the ship rolled over the top. A bright light flashed as Drey fired both beams at the red circle. He watched them hit and blow through the hull. He twisted the ship and flew under the bottom of the ship which was the blasted top of the giant vessel. A blue field appeared around the ship and Drey saw the giant ship fifteen miles behind him as Doc submerged out of normal space. Thirty of the giant ships emerged into normal space around the stricken ship just in time to have it blow up in their face. Six of the giant rescuers had massive pieces of the exploding ship blow through their force fields and hit their hulls. Four of them started burning as hundreds of the smaller warships began appearing.
• • •
Drey watched his display as alien ships began pouring into the scene. Suddenly Ian, Violet, and Andi appeared on his secondary panel. “I do trust the two of you don’t have anything in normal space that could be detected.”
Doc said, “The two centimeter ball on the end of the antenna is all that’s there.”
“Be ready to get out of here is one of them starts moving this way.”
“I don’t think they’ll come this way. We’re above the site of the battle and out of the planet’s orbits.”
“Just be ready; E, see if you can listen in on their communications.”
“They’re really ticked off at what you did to their ship.”
“Can you feed their discussions to us?”
“I’ll interpret as I send.”
“That would be good, E.”
• • •
There was total disorganization until a Fleet Admiral arrived. “Someone tell me what happened here!”
Silence descended on the alien’s frequency and a ship’s commander said, “I received a call for help and responded to this location.”
“How long did it take you to arrive?”
“The message arrived at the Ship Facility and the Hub Computer dispatched me; it took five minutes to back out and make the jump.”
Drey noticed Andi write something down.
“What about the rest of you?”
“We were notified by the Hub fifteen minutes after it received the message.”
“Did any of you receive the ship’s distress call?”
“No Admiral, the message was sent to the Hub’s frequency.”
“You can’t tell me that none of you heard the distress frequency.”
“Sir, it wasn’t sent on the general distress frequency. It was sent on the Hub’s channel.”
“Sir, I saw the top of the ship before it exploded and it was heavily damaged. I suspect the automatic distress beacon was damaged before it could send a message. All of us are connected to the Hub and I would guess if the beacon was out, they sent it on the open channel they were using.”
“Who did this?” Silence greeted the question. “Who damaged the six ships?”
“Admiral, we jumped in to assist and arrived just as the ship exploded. The damage done to the six ships was caused by pieces of the battleship blowing through their force fields.”
The Admiral looked at his display and knew that the explosion had to be massive to penetrate the other ship’s force fields. “In the future, you will not jump in so close to the ship you’re coming to assist. Did any of you receive any of the ship’s data before it went up?”
“Admiral, I received some information.”
“Hub, what happened here?”
“A single small ship attacked and destroyed the ship.”
“How big was the ship?”
“It was one tenth the length of a Ship Destroyer.”
The Admiral and all the other ship commanders were shocked. “How big?”
“I’m still examining the data. However, it was smaller than any ship in our fleet and had beams three times stronger than those used on our strongest ships.”
“Did you manage to get a reading on its force field?”
“It wasn’t hit by any of the ship’s weapons where a reading could be taken.”
“Did you get a line on which direction it went?”
“No, the directional scanner was destroyed with the beacon. I did get an image of it as the ship rolled and the bottom scanner saw it briefly.”
“Send that to me now.”
The Admiral looked at the ship flying along the hull firing a blaster at the blasters it was approaching and was stunned. “Hub, that ship is smaller than most of our shuttles.”
“It is clearly from an advanced civilization we have not previously encountered.”
“What are your instructions?”
“I will communicate what happened to the High Council. Please investigate and see if there is anything you can determine about what happened. I would highly recommend that all search craft be brought here and start a search for whoever did this. We have not done a real through scan of this area and there may be an enemy here. I would also highly recommend that no ship should go out alone.”
The Admiral looked at his control board, “I want to know what caused the destruction of our ship. Investigate the debris and find me some answers.”
The warships scattered as support ships jumped in to put out the fires on the six damaged ships.
• • •
Ian looked at Drey and said, “I’m glad you suggested doing the attack there.”
“It made sense. That area is around the curve from the Union.”
• • •
“That was some flying,”
“Thanks, Violet.”
“Why were you and Ian worried so much about missiles?”
“Uhh, no reason.” Andi looked at Violet and furrowed her brow. Drey looked at Ian on the display and knew he saw what was coming. Drey turned down his volume as Andi looked at him and yelled, “Are you that dumb?” Violet looked at her sister wondering what was going on. “And you knew about it and didn’t tell me!?”
Violet said, “What?”
“They could have been using the FTL missiles we loaded on our ships. If they had, he could not have escaped.”
“That’s where your inexperience as a pilot confuses you.”
Andi jerked her attention at Drey and he said, “If they were FTL, how would they have been able to hit me?”
Andi sat down and put her head on her hands. Ian and Drey waited and she finally said, “They would have to have had a homing device.”
“And?”
“They would have had to stay at a low speed to come around the ship to get at you.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“But they did get behind you and give chase.”
“Yes, but Doc determined they did not have a blue field around them. He was set to jump if they did.”
“Doc, is that true?”
“Don’t try to put me off, Doc!”
“The Hub is communicating and I want to hear, be quiet.”
The four looked at each other and waited. Then they heard, “That is correct. Leave that planet and join the search.”
“Do you want all three of us to leave?”
“Yes, you can return in two days.”
“We’ll power up and go.”
Ian said, “That’s great, we can go and destroy those old ships with the missiles.”
“Be quiet. This is not easy.”
Ian looked at Drey and he held up his hand telling him to wait. A moment later they heard, “…thought you just told us to leave.”
“No, stay there two days and, if nothing happens, you can leave.”
“Powering down.”
• • •
Ian said, “What did you just do, Doc?”
“That Hub Computer is a very suspicious creation.”
“What do you mean?”
“She broadcast that first message on the frequency used to communicate with the ships here. The second communication was on a completely different frequency and encrypted with a tricky algorithm. It took me some time to work it out.”
Ian said, “You expected it to do that?”
Drey chuckled, “He does think like me.”
“Then we can go and destroy those ships.”
“No we can’t; especially not now.”
“Why?”
“If we wait two days and go, that computer will begin to suspect we can hear it.”
“Those missiles have to be destroyed.”
“Not really. We just need to prevent them from falling into their possession.”
Violet said, “How do you do that without destroying them?”
“Violet, how many of the old ships were found with intact missile units?”
“Forty.”
“Doc, do you have any blast bombs in the armory.”
“How many do you want?”
“Forty.”
“Sure.”
Ian said, “Booby traps.”
“Yes, and if one goes off, they all go off.”
“How do we set them and not have them discovered by a scan?”
“We pull the activate plug and push then in with the handle held down by pressure. We’ll set them all on the same frequency and if one is disturbed, it will broadcast the frequency. The others will then rebroadcast the frequency before they explode. That way those around the planet will hear at least one frequency, no matter where they’re located from the first blast.”
“What if there’s a small earthquake and one is released?”
“As long as we are nowhere around there, the earthquake will be blamed for the ancient weapons exploding.”
Ian started nodding. “We need to let the ships take us down and use the gravity sleds to stay off the surface. We don’t want to leave any new tracks. The ships can hover and drop us off with the locations of the ships we need to handle. We’ll have to do ten each and get out of there.”
“What happens then?”
“We go back to the Union and I deliver all the recordings of what we’ve learned. Then I tell the King that you three will be issued pardons and relief from your Royal Duties.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Does the Union have a ship capable of catching me? And if they did, do you not think I could still give them the slip if it came to that.”
“They won’t do it.”
“They will.”
Andi looked at Drey, ‘Why do you say that?”
“I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”
Andi smiled, “Now that would be interesting.”
“I’ll record it for you.”
• • •
Three days later, the four were woken by an alarm and the intercom said, “Do you still want us to leave?”
“Have you detected anything?”
“No, nothing.”
“Power up and join the search. We’ve doubled the number in each unit and we need every available ship to take part.”
“Powering up.”
• • •
The two ships were beside the closest moon and saw the three ships lift from the planet and move into the upper atmosphere. They formed up on each other and disappeared.
“Get down there now. Get it done quickly.”
“Why, Drey?”
“If it were me, I’d wait about twelve hours and send a ship back just to make sure. I might even do it sooner, but I know I wouldn’t return for four hours at the earliest. I would suspect that if I were heard, any that did would wait at least that long to come.”
The two ships screamed down to the surface and dropped off the four sleds and assisted them when a large distance had to be traveled. Two hours and thirty minutes later the four sleds were picked up and the ships submerged out of normal space. Andi was back with Drey and Ian looked at them on the display and said, “I was more nervous than a sinner in church.”
Drey said, “I was probably just being paranoid.”
E interrupted saying, “I have a ship emerging into normal space above the planet. They immediately heard, “I’m here. Why did you send the message through another ship?”
“I want you to scan the surface of that planet and compare it to the one you made before you left. If anything on the surface is different, and I do mean anything, notify me instantly.” The ship entered orbit and began its scan.
Drey said, “I’m starting to like that computer. It’s refreshingly sneaky.”
“That was close, Drey.”
“But not close enough. Let’s wait until that ship leaves before we jump. You two whiz kids need to keep your sensors out to see if you feel any pressure waves moving this way.”
Three hours later the ship jumped away and Doc said, “I feel small pressure waves starting to build.”
“Stay where you are and wait.”
An hour later six alien ship destroyers emerged and rescanned the planet. After another hour they jumped away. Drey said, “Wait for it.”
Thirty minutes later a FTL ship arrived at the planet. The beams on the moon did not fire at it. “Nothing here.”
There was a long pause and they heard, “Return to the Hub.”
“Why did you send me here?”
“It was the logical thing to do if two variables were true. It appears they aren’t. Return to base.”
Violet said, “What two variables?
Andi said, “One we could hear its communications and two we were here for a reason and now that we’ve exposed our existence, we would come back.”
“Why would we come back?”
“Because it is next to impossible to unite with other ships without a common meeting coordinate. This is a logical place.”
Drey smiled, “I’m impressed.”
“You saw it too.”
“Even so.”
“How did you know there would be another ship?”
Drey smiled, “The devious use three attempts. The really devious use four.”
Doc said, “I would use five.” Just as another FTL ship arrived.
Even Drey had to laugh.
Chapter Sixteen
The two ships arrived on Hellhole and Drey dropped off Andi and left for Euclid. The three had made it clear they were not going back under any circumstances. Before he went to Euclid, he went to San Rosa and spoke at length with the President. He revealed what they had uncovered and finally managed to get him to listen. After a day, the President called him in and told him what he had been able to do. Drey thanked him and left for Euclid.
He arrived in orbit and asked for clearance to visit the Lead Scientist. The Duke that was head of security came on the display and said, “We currently have the one you’re here to see in confinement.”
“You do.”
“Yes and you will land your ship immediately.”<
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“I don’t think so.”
“Suddenly three ships appeared around him and the Duke said, “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
Drey smiled at the Duke, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” The Duke saw the ship disappear and continued to hear Drey speaking, “I’m going to send you some information and I’ll give you two days to take a look at it. At the end of that time, I’ll discuss my next possible actions.”
The Duke hit his board, “Where is that ship?”
“We have no idea, Your Highness. It’s not here.”
“Then how is he still communicating?”
“We have no idea.”
The Duke looked at Drey and said, “What possible actions are you referring to?”
“I’m considering destroying the Obelisk. Don’t look at me like that. You know I have a missile that can do it. However, I’ll hold my judgment until you have the opportunity to view the material.”
The Duke looked at his board and saw a massive file arrive. He looked at the blank display and took the file to the Scientific Building. Four hours later, he took it to the King. Four hours after that, the members in the Senior Royalty arrived and the King gave them the file. At the end of the next day, the Duke pushed his communicator, “Are you still there?”
“Of course.”
“I notice that you didn’t include in the file how you’re able to escape detection.”
“You know who I am.”
The King interrupted the conversation, “Why did you lie about having the Princess on your ship?”
Drey looked at the Duke, “You have a recording of our previous conversation.” The Duke nodded. “Send it to the King or this conversation is done.”
The King said, “Send it to me.” The Duke paused and the King said, “If you value your position you won’t keep me waiting!” Drey watched the King look away from the display for a few minutes and then turn back and say, “The truth.”
Drey said, “But not the whole truth.”
“You’re pretty slick, Andrea.”
“Not really. I’m like a bolder crashing into everything in its path. There’s not much subtlety with me.”
“Do you honestly thing you could fire on the Obelisk and not be destroyed?”
“Do you see the satellite above the planet sending weather images to the surface?”
The King reached out of the display and moved his arm, “I do.”