The Garoden War. (SpaceFed StarShips Series) Book 6. An action-packed follow-on story that sees the Earth's Space Navy in action.: ‘Into the Fire.’

by Gerry A. Saunders

  “Richardson. Your plan has been approved, in theory. However, it has been re-engineered to suit our ships capabilities.

  So, you’d better move your ships out of the battle arena, Captains, and carry on with your own part in the plan. Good luck.”

  “Good luck to all of you, Admiral,” both replied, and meant it.

  Winton then called Commander Procard.

  “Nice of you to recognize us, at last,” Procard acknowledged, having been feeling ignored.

  “My apologies Procard… But the plan is being put into action now, so you’d better jump to…”

  “I know where.” Procard cut in. “I’ll say that for your AI. It seems to be with it. I’ve got the preselected coordinates, now. So, we’ll transmit location transponder bursts when we’ve set the trap.”

  “Thank you, Procard. And, as we say, good luck.”

  “And you, Admiral. Did you know that we Crillons have a Battle cry, Vergrusa?” Procard asked.

  Admiral Winton glanced, questioningly, at Captain Garrett.

  “No idea what it means, Admiral,” he stated, and couldn’t help smiling.

  Garett hadn’t been sure about Winton during the war simulation exercises on Earth. Now, however, apart from Winton’s annoying habit of always wanting to interfere. He had to admit he was beginning to like Winton, just a bit.

  Chapter 36

  Start of Hostilities

  “Excellency, Z184’s drones have advised us that the alien ships are holding at twenty-three light-minutes out. But the drones can only detect eight ships, now,” Griken reported as he watched his holographic display refresh to show the new data.

  “Did the drone you sent to the fifth planet, find anything?”

  “The drone never reached it, Excellency.”

  “What do you mean? Did it turn around and come back on its own?”

  “It would appear so, Excellency.”

  Verice was surprised by this. “Nevertheless, the alien ships still outnumber us,” Verice remarked, as he stood beside Griken and studied the display.

  Verice couldn’t understand why he was suddenly feeling so cautious. Then wondered if these aliens could have tampered with the drone. Finally deciding that they wouldn’t have been able to, as the drone’s brain wasn’t advanced enough to be externally influenced.

  “They are inferior ships, Excellency,” Griken commented while noting that Verice was deep in thought.

  He should take his remaining five ships straight in, and wipe them all out with one mighty blow, Verice thought to himself. Then he’d send a couple of Planet Destructor weapons to the fourth planet.

  “Excellency. Five of the alien ships have just jumped,” Science Officer Griken reported. Having received an update directly from his companion brain, seconds before his display refreshed with the new observation.

  Verice’s Companion brain reacted quickly to this information and offered him a new recommendation.

  ‘All ships should jump now and engage the two remaining alien vessels,’ Verice’s companion urged.

  ‘If possible, attach a subspace limpet tracker to the smaller ship and force it to jump. Then it will almost certainly jump straight to its homeworld, to warn of our coming.’

  Verice considered his companion’s suggestion. He liked it he decided.

  However, this time, he would only send one ship after the small alien ship. The Z186 Star Destroyer would be more than enough, he was sure.

  It would follow the aliens to their warp exit point, then destroy their vessel. After which, his ship would follow up by shooting two of their planet-destructor weapons directly at the alien’s homeworld to obliterate it. Yes, this was what he would do. Then these aliens would be history.

  “Cratic. Order your companion to complete the jump sync for all ships. Then Jump immediately we’re synced.

  -Ω-

  Admiral Winton looked at his display, and, to his astonishment, saw five massive Garoden ships exit warp.

  Then, as he continued watching, they formed a box formation. With one ship in each corner, and all four of them about six kilometers apart. The fifth ship then moved in and sat in the center of the box.

  Winton was speechless and twitched nervously for a second or two as he realized that his Navy might have a very short life.

  Meanwhile, Captain Garrett double checked where his ships were located.

  “Protective screens are at max, Captain,” Anna, the AI, reported. “My sensors tell me the aliens are scanning the area.”

  On hearing this, Admiral Winton remembered that the AI’s ability to gather information during their battle simulations on Earth had at times, been suspect. He hoped that this AI was a damn sight better than the simulator’s had been.

  Then, needing input from the assets that Richardson had sent over, he looked at their location Icons and saw to his surprise that they were still in their cabins. Not here on the bridge when their abilities were needed.

  “Ensign Stevens, why aren’t Richardson’s two assets on the bridge?” Winton asked, irritated that they were still in their cabins.

  Ensign Stevens, couldn’t stand Winton, and chose his words carefully as he replied.

  “Horatio Stevenson, and Andrei Sergei Volkov, both say that they will remain in their cabins until you are able to return them to Earth, sir.”

  “Why?” Captain Garrett asked, joining in.

  “They insist that they are diplomats. Moreover, they are querying why we are calling them assets, when neither of them has any abilities, other than diplomatic, Sir.”

  “Stay put, ensign,” Winton ordered. “Captain Serrell,” he called.

  “Yes, Admiral. What can I do for you?”

  “The two so-called assets that Captain Richardson had. What, or who, exactly were they?”

  “Two young females, I believe, Admiral,” Hector told him.

  Winton was furious. “Damn the man,” he exclaimed. “He’s just dumped two useless diplomats on us.”

  “Perhaps he thought that they would be safer with you, sir. Rather than take them on a mission they may never return from,” Hector helpfully suggested.

  By now, Winston had calmed down somewhat. “I know he’s right, damn him,” Winton reluctantly agreed. While smiling ruefully to himself at Richardson’s cheek.

  “Captain Serrell, instruct your drones to take out the two enemy surveillance drones. Now.”

  “The execute command has been sent, Admiral.”

  “Excellent. Captain Garrett, we are about to engage.”

  -Ω-

  Location: Garoden’s fourteenth Jump position.

  Andromeda and the Starship Neutron exited warp space, one hundred light years out from DPav4. The Andromeda and Neutron had been locked together for this Jump, as the latter’s Jump capability was far superior.

  Their ships had scanned the area on exit from warp and detected just one object. So, both captains were relieved to find that this was a Garoden marker buoy. And, exactly what they had perceived it to be.

  Neutron’s, Chris Sherman, was the first to open the ship-to-ship link.

  “So far, so good captain.”

  “Yes,” Frank briefly replied, being more intent on the task before him.

  He was trying to concentrate his mind. In an attempt to connect with the Gatherer that the Solveron’s had placed on the Andromeda, then to link to it.

  After a few seconds, he sensed something. And, taking a bit of a gamble, deliberately read out the code Captain Sitrea had given him.

  Then, as he had hoped, a representation of the orange colored Gatherer appeared in his mind. Though, initially surprised, he quickly figured out that the Gatherer was using his transceiver implant, via Andromeda’s link, to achieve this.

  Frank concentrated again, focusing his mind this time on finding out the location of the other two Solveron Gatherers. Again he was successful, and immediately saw Commander Procard’s, then Captain Sitrea’s gatherers, even though Sitrea’s ship was approximate
ly four hundred light-years, or four jumps, ahead of their ships.

  “Andromeda, can you track our exit point for the next jump?”

  “No need,” an irritated AI answered. “This thing’s just fed the coordinates into my net, without even a warning.”

  Frank could sympathize with Andromeda. Being an entirely aware computer meant she had almost human feelings.

  “Andromeda. You’ll have to put up with it. The Gatherer is the only link we have, to enable us to follow Captain Sitrea.”

  “Your AI’s touchy,” Neutron’s, Captain Sherman remarked.

  “Don’t I know it? We’ll stay here for twenty minutes, then push on if that’s okay with you Captain?”

  “That’s fine… Frank, may I…?”

  “Of course, Chris,” Frank answered, knowing what Chris was about to ask.

  “My techs, Tom and Stewart, reckon they’ve come up with the mechanism that turns off the crystal’s energy bubble.”

  Frank was taken aback, as earlier, nobody had had anything worthwhile to offer.

  “Chris, can you relay your techs ideas to Andromeda, and talk it through with my Quantum Physics team?” He asked. “Come to that, I’ve got a better idea. We’ll link to everyone.”

  The Icon for Neutron’s Warp Mechanics and Stealth Technology Department lit immediately as Frank selected all departments, and he found himself staring at a man’s face on his screen.

  “Hi, I’m Stewart, and my colleague here, is Tom,” the man told him. As Tom put his head within view of the camera.

  “Hi,” Tom quickly said before Stewart took over again.

  “We are the Neutron’s scientific team,” he announced, introducing them both.

  By this time, all department head’s images were showing on Frank’s screen.

  Stewart then continued. “We have a theory on the mechanics of the life and death problem with Henderson’s energy bubble. And we believe our theory has merit.”

  “Go on Stewart,” Ned Parker, from Andromeda’s Quantum Theoretical department, urged.

  “Okay. A few years ago, both Tom and I made some studies on the energy bubble’s creation and demise. But, it's taken us a while to locate our results.”

  “Yes. And?” Frank almost snapped, impatient to have something he could work with. Then, after a short delay, a series of diagrams appeared on his tactical pad, and on everyone else’s displays.

  Then Stewart’s image appeared on everyone’s screens, He was standing beside an overlay of the first diagram, with a pointer in his hand.

  “Okay. I assume you all have the images,” he stated, as he pointed at a place in the picture.

  “See this, here? This is the point at which the warp crystal stops growing. Then, there’s a period of about one minute, when it remains dormant.

  So, exactly within this period of time, we have to swing the bottom half of its designated containment chamber to a position directly under the crystal. Then cut the support beam. And, hey presto, it's in the box so to speak. Then, we have to activate the chamber’s magnetic field. Clamp the top half back on, and it will hold the crystal in, when it becomes active, again.

  “Yes, Stewart, we all know that,” Mark Trask commented.

  “I know. But, what we didn’t know, was that this Energy Bubble is generated when the crystal enters its one-minute long dormant stage. We think it’s a marker point set by the crystal itself.”

  “H’mm,” Ned muttered, as he thought about their theory. “So, it’s not under stress at this point, then?”

  “Exactly right, Professor. But all of us, including the Solverons and Crillons, use a low-level magnetic field to stabilize the crystal enough to be able to maintain it in a usable state,” Stewart replied and paused as if waiting for comments.

  “So, am I right in thinking that what you’re suggesting, is that it’s all to do with the magnetic field?” Harold from Andromeda’s Astro department asked.

  “Yes. When the crystal is in the chamber, and we activate the magnetic field… We’ll, we believe it gets stressed and sends out an… um. Let’s say, it sends a shutdown command to the energy bubble.”

  Frank smiled, seeing how pleased Stewart looked as he finished telling everyone.

  “Have you worked out what the trigger is?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “But can we duplicate that trigger?” Mark asked.

  “Yes,” Stewart confirmed. “And we should be set up by the time we reach the next jump exit.”

  -Ω-

  Lieutenant Gort looked up from his weapons console.

  “The two enemy surveillance drones are down, Captain.”

  “Good. And the state of our weapons power grid?” Captain Garrett asked.

  The Lieutenant brought up another set of stats. “Ninety-three percent, sir. The civilian contractors are still working on the last ten particle beam emitters.

  “Ensign Stevens. Get all the contractors back to a safe area,” Garrett ordered. “We’ll have to go with what we have.”

  Admiral Winton was about to question Garrett’s order, but never managed to do so. As a barrage of particle beams, emanating from the Garoden fleet suddenly lit up Space.

  The Beams seeming to randomly crisscross each other, created streaks of bluish-purple light as they missed their unseen targets, then disappeared out and into the blackness of Space.

  “Grief,” Captain Garrett gasped.

  More and more particle beams flashed by their three cloaked ships. With each near miss leaving everyone feeling as if they were playing Russian roulette.

  Lieutenant Gort then stated the obvious. “Captain, they’re ignoring us, and the Michigan…They haven’t taken the bait, they’re going after our stealth ships instead.”

  Captain Garrett was worried. He knew that just one hit on a stealth ship’s protective force field would give the Garoden gunners a distortion in space on which to concentrate their weapons fire.

  “Weapons, remind the aliens that we’re still here,” Captain Garrett ordered. Hoping to distract some of the alien’s fire power.

  “There are traces of anti-matter in their weapons fire,” Anna, the Jefferson’s AI, informed them.

  Then, over-riding Captain Garrett’s protocols, Admiral Winton ordered. “Stealth’s, get out of this area now,” over the open link.

  But his order came too late. As, far to the right, they could see one of their stealth ships protective screen distort as it absorbed the energy of a particle beam.

  The Garodens instantly concentrated their Star Destroyers firepower on the distortion in space until the Stealth’s protective screen flickered under the massive concentration of weapons fire.

  Then the screen overloaded and collapsed, and the Derringer became visible as its stealth mosaics flared, then burnt off its hull.

  “Bring us about to protect Derringer,” Captain Garrett quickly ordered.

  Then, just as the Battleship Jefferson started to swing around, to provide some protection for the damaged ship. It took incoming alien fire, as well.

  “Screens holding Captain,” Lieutenant Farrow stated.

  “Do not help the Derringer,” the ships AI, Anna suddenly snapped. “You will endanger this vessel.”

  Hearing this reminded Admiral Winton of the same situation during their battle simulations on Earth. When the simulator’s AI had remarked about them attempting to help the escort cruiser, Fathom. He recalled that the AI had tried to chastise him, and it had been right, then. So, maybe this AI was correct, now.

  “Captain Garrett,” Winton intervened. “Break off your attempt,” he ordered. “It’ll fail anyway.”

  Garrett was shocked by Winton’s order. Then, he too remembered the simulations on Earth and the loss of the simulated ship.

  “Cancel that order to protect the Derringer,” he yelled, wanting to be heard over the combat’s din.

  “Screens down to eighty-eight percent, Captain,” Lieutenant Farrow called out.

  The w
orried voice of Ensign Blake, from damage control, cut through the babble of the comms board.

  “Captain. Hull temperature's rising,” he informed them.

  Suddenly, a flash lit up the Jefferson’s bridge windows, and the ship rocked, as Derringer's rear exploded.

  “Derringer's lost all power and life support from section eighteen back,” Anna matter-of-factly stated.

  “God dammit it,” Admiral Winton exclaimed in horror, as he studied his own display. He could see that the Derringer was dead.

  Then the Jefferson rocked again. This time, from Garoden weapons fire, hits on their own ship. As the Garodens tried to overload their protective screen.

  “We’ll have to jump Admiral, and soon,” Garrett urged.

  Winton said nothing, as he studied his own display.

  Illustrious had by now moved further around and closer to the cloaked Argonaut. They were thankful to have missed most of the Garodens weapons fire, until now.

  But, both ships would gain nothing by staying cloaked any longer, their captains decided. So, they decloaked, then started to engage the Garodens fleet from a different angle.

  “We’re going to lose more ships if we say stay, Admiral,” Captain Garrett prompted.

  Winton could see that Argonaut was already taking hits, and he could see that her protective energy screen was fluctuating badly. Even so, he noticed that the Garodens still hadn’t attempted to tag one of their ships yet.

  “Screens down to seventy-eight percent, Captain,” Lieutenant Farrow called out. “Hull temperature has risen twelve degrees.”

  “Admiral?” Garret called out.

  He could see where this action was heading. Neither of their two Earth ships had even come close to causing a dent in any of the Garoden’s protective energy shields.