The Circle

by Harold R Watson

  We were very impressed with their cave home and the ingenuity they had incorporated to not only survive but to make life tolerable during all these years.

  John Gates said that he had kept a journal of his experiences from the time he first met Becky until we came. We agreed to publish his journal hoping it might help us to more fully appreciate what they had endured. He seemed pleased that we wanted to publish his works.

  We were just being selfish hoping that some of his techniques could help our returnees learn how to develop the most from what mother nature provided for them as an aid to re-establishing a more fulfilling life on Earth.

  After seeing how we lived in the domed city, John was soon able to convince his people to join with us. Together we would begin the process of rebuilding our lives on this planet. It wasn t long before their people accepted ours and our people accepted theirs and we began to live in harmony.

  Unknown to us during this time of blending however, was the fact that our old enemies were putting the final touches to their own plans to take over Earth.

  The Atlanteans, who had managed to place spies in our midst, had learned of our return to Earth and were making final preparations to attempt to wipe us out and to take our place as the inhabitants of this freshly rejuvenated planet and to claim it for their empire.

  During the reconstruction process, the Toren crews had installed a protective star gate system around the earth. This system was designed to stave off an attack from outer space by ships without the star gate codes necessary to open them.

  The existence of our star gates made us feel pretty secure against enemy attacks. Our security was not to last as their spies inside our group managed to learn the codes and pass them on to the base they had built on the moon during the twenty plus years the Toren restoration crews had worked to restore Earth.

  The Atlanteans plan all along, as we were to soon learn, was to wait until the restoration work was nearly finished by Toren Empire using its technology, its resources, and its efforts before moving in.

  They also wanted to wait until the large Toren contingents and arsenals had left the area to return to the empire thus minimizing any resistance to their advances.

  By the time we had settled comfortably into the domed city, making plans to establish colonies around the globe, the Atlanteans had gathered sufficient forces on their new moon base to feel confident they could launch their first strike.

  CHAPTER 18-THE VOTE

  The first attack from the Atlanteans was designed primarily to get our attention. They wanted us to know that they had some of our star gate codes and had taken control of six of our gates that would allow them easy access to our location. They bragged about their superior forces and offered us one chance to move out and to return to Starsis or where ever we wished to go as long as we left Earth never to return.

  We realized that before we could expect any additional support from the Toren Empire, that it would come too late to help us. We knew we had many star ships and weapons on THE TOREN TWENTY to defend our planet for a while if we could get enough of our people to them.

  We answered the message from the Atlanteans requesting more time to make our decision. We told them that if we did agree to leave Earth that we wanted assurances that we would be allowed to leave peacefully.

  The Atlanteans said they would allow us seventy-two hours to make our decision and if we said no to their proposal that they would begin attacks that would destroy us.

  We figured they wanted us to leave without the need for them to attack because they wanted our domed city in tact for their use rather than destroying it.

  We got a message off to Starsis of what had transpired and were not surprised by their response. They said that we would be welcome if we decided to return to Starsis but that if we decided to remain and fight that we would be on our own for at least a year until they could send forces to help us.

  My wife went on the television to bring everyone up-to-date on the message she had received from the Atlanteans. After explaining their offer, we stated: “Fellow citizens of Earth, I don’t know what you want to do but I don’t plan to give the Atlantean bastards one inch of Earth as long as I live and breathe. I will fight them to the death if I have to stand here and do it alone.”

  “It would be unfair for me however, to place your lives in jeopardy by insisting that you stay here and join me in this fight. Everyone will be given an opportunity to vote on whether we stay and fight or leave and return to Starsis to live out our remaining lives. For me, I didn’t come this far to turn back now. We have sufficient forces and new weapons to put up a good fight. If we can hold off the Atlanteans for one year, reinforcements will arrive to help us,” she continued.

  The switchboards of the station were lighting up and the moderator of the stations informed my wife that there were many people calling the station with questions.

  It was agreed to let her explain to the television audience that they should E-mail their questions into the station within the next twenty-four hours and that she and her staff would review as many as possible and try to answer them starting at 20:00 hours tomorrow evening in prime time when most of the people would be able to watch.

  She returned to her office and called an emergency meeting of her star ship Captains and their Executive Officers. She began the meeting reviewing what she knew up to now.

  She had had a staff working most of the day determining which star gate had been compromised by The Atlantean forces. She now knew which ones were in their control and which ones were still in our control.

  There were over seven hundred star gates spread around the earth and all were controlled from the ground except the six captured by enemy forces.

  That me ans that we need to position our defenses to guard the six compromised gates to try to plug the holes before a large force can come through them, she told the gathering. We don t have enough cruisers and weapons on the ground to do that from here, she explained. That means we have to get enough of our fighting crews to THE TOREN TWENTY to activate our reserve star cruisers so we ll stand some chance of blocking the six star gates.

  What are our chances of doing that? on e of the Captains asked.

  The mother ship is cloaked. I m not sure the Atlanteans realize it is still out there. I don t believe they have found it or by now they surely would had attacked it. It has only a skeleton crew aboard but they have maintained an orbit that will bring them near a star gate on the opposite side of the earth from the present location of the moon. It will be only a short distance from that gate to reach the mother ship.

  We can send one cloaked star cruiser to the mother ship to deliver minimum crews for forty-eight star cruisers. To send more would leave the ground force virtually defenseless against a surprise attack.

  This clocked ship will use one of our star gates on the side of earth opposite the moon for least chance of being detected.

  The mother ship will be orbiting that star gate at 20:00 hours tomorrow night so the star cruiser will have to leave here at 19:30 hours and pass through the gate at precisely 19:55 hours to rendezvous with the mother ship at 20:00 hours precisely. That will leave it uncloaked only five minutes. If it is discovered, the Atlanteans will have no time to react before it is cloaked again.

  I will be on local television answering E-Mail questions sent in by residents of the domed city. I expect any Atlantean spies who have not as yet been discovered will be listening to the telecast to pass on the information to their moon base.

  Since it is possible that one or more of their spies are in this meeting, all of you will be sequestered until it is time for the star cruiser to launch. You have been searched and debugged prior to this meeting. I apologize to our loyal officers for the indignity but not to anyone of you who might be a spy. None of you were wired or otherwise found to have a transceiver devise on your person, so
I hope this meeting has not been compromised.

  Your minimum flight crews who will be accompanying you are in another meeting and they too have been thoroughly scrutinized and will remain sequestered until take off time.

  Once all of you are on the starship, you Captains can meet with your individual crews and fill them in on their mission and what is expected of them. The mother ship will have your standing orders of which gate you will be assigned to protect by the time you board her. We are not releasing the list of compromised star gates to anyone at this time. When you receive your orders aboard the mother ship, you will be deployed in groups of eight at a time each all eight assigned to a particular compromised star gate.

  Your ships with have the latest cloaking devises on board and once you are in position, scan for enemy ships that might be near. By the time you reach your assigned gate, the other two star ships from our ground contingent will probably already be there. One flag ship will be assigned form our Admiral corps to each group of ten and you will coordinate all your forces with your assigned flag ship.

  Each flag ship will also contain scientists who can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about a star gate. Are there any questions?

  She fielded questions until there were no more and then she and I left the meeting to return to our other duties.

  We still had forty-eight hours before we would have to give our answer to the Atlantean Commander. If we are going to stand and fight, we want our deployments from the ground and from the mother ship in place.

  Tess went on television at the appointed time a half hour after the star ship had taken off. She spent several hours answering hundreds of e-mail questions about the Atlantean proposal. She ended by saying that everyone of voting age would be given an opportunity to vote on whether to stay and fight or to go back to Staris and surrender the Earth to the Atlanteans.

  She gave them several web site addresses where they could log on to vote beginning at 08:00 the next morning and ending at noon. The site would only allow one vote per log on and would check registration of voters as it went so no one could vote twice. She told them that we would do as the majority chose and that it would be a democratic process.

  If the majority votes to stay an d fight, we all will stay and fight, she said.

  If the majority votes to give the Earth to the Atlanteans without a fight, I will ask if there are any volunteers who will stay with me and fight and the rest of you may leave and return to Starsis. You know how I will vote and I will announce the outcome of your voting sometimes after 13:00 tomorrow on this station once all the results are in, she said before signing off.

  By the time the votes were tallied, the deployments to the six compromised star gates were completed. All was quiet and the Atlanteans had apparently kept their word not to attack until the deadline for our answer had passed.

  All votes were fed into the circuits of Marvo during the voting period. At the end of the voting, only he knew the results. Tess had set up this system so the voting would be unbiased. I fully well expected her to remain on Earth and fight even if everyone else chose to leave.

  I had to vote to remain by her side. We would go down together if necessary. At 13:00 on the dot, Marvo came in and said he had the final results of the voting.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Tess said. ‘Give us the results.”

  Marvo answered. “With 100% of the votes counted, eight percent voted to return to Starsis and ninety-two percent voted to stay and fight.”

  ‘I guess we stay and fight,” she said with renewed pride in her constituents.

  We drove to the television station so she could report the voting results to the people of the domed city..

  “Fellow citizens you have made your choice. I thank you for your vote regardless of how you voted. You have answered the Atlanteans proposal. You have told them in no uncertain terms ‘HELL NO, WE WON’T GO!!”

  “Your vote was an overwhelming 92% to stay and fight and 8% to go back to Starsis. That means we all stay and fight!”

  The Atlanteans got our message and began moving forces into range to launch their first major attack. They pounded us relentlessly and by winter had managed to put land forces on the ground and to establish a base camp from which they could launch sorties against us with their fighters.

  We held out like the valiant warriors we were but we so far, were loosing the war. It seemed to be only a matter of time before we would be totally overwhelmed.

  The dome over the city was full of holes from the large number of attacks by the Atlanteans but it still provided a measure of protection to our citizens. Our weapons destroyed many of their fighters during the attacks. Yet they seemed to have plenty more to keep us busy trying to defend our city and its occupants.

  CHAPTER 19-BATTLE LINES FOR EARTH

  ARE DRAWN

  We finally received some good news. Four of the six compromised star gates were recoded by our scientists leaving only two through which the Atlantean forces could penetrate our defenses. The rest of the good news was that the sorties had dwindled by a large percent because the Northeast Ohio winter had set in with heavy lake affect snowstorms making flying hazardous.

  Many of the enemy’s space ships had returned to their moon base to re-supply during this winter lull period. It also gave us a reprieve to repair our facilities and to regroup somewhat.

  We positioned more star cruisers on the remaining two compromised star gates and brought ten back to the secret base under Lake Erie which we had managed to reopen since returning to Earth.

  Tess had our scientists hidden away in the secret base working on an old project that had nearly been completed prior to the holocaust. If they could complete it and perfect it, it might have to be used as a last resort against the Atlanteans if all else should fail.

  She would not divulge what the weapon was even to me. I figured it was some kind of Doomsday Machine and that was her reason for keeping it a secret from all except the key scientists working on the project.

  Meanwhile, we tried to get control of the remaining star gates but the Atlantean forces, after realizing they had only two left, fortified the remaining gates with too many forces for us to try to engage head on. Should they start coming through the gate a few ships at a time, we might be able to ambush some of them, but eventually, their superior numbers would allow them to break through our ranks again.

  Our best efforts to date had kept us on the defensive. We now saw a chance to go on the offensive during the lull when the majority of their forces were back on their moon base refurbishing their ships for another round of attacks in the Spring.

  Their main ground forces camp was located by our scouts to be located on the north side of Lake Erie. From there, they had launched sorties against us since they established the base last summer.

  Only recently had the number of sorties decreased because snowy weather had moved in and grounded their flights. The weather forecasts over the lake indicated that they would remain socked in for several more days. Meanwhile, we should be able to launch a couple of star cruisers from our side of the lake during the soupy conditions because the star cruisers could launch in any kind of weather.

  Now that we had the coordinates of their camp, we could fly high above the weather and use our weapons to pound the coordinates.

  We wouldn’t know if we were hitting any particular objects on the ground because of the heavy overcast, but we might be able to cause enough damage to the area to reduce their capabilities of launching attacks against us for a while longer.

  We have held out six months so far. In another six months, we should be receiving reinforcements from Starsis.

  We decided to send the star ships on the mission north of the lake. They pounded the area off and on for several hours and experience no resistance from below.

  Once the cloud cove
r moved out a few days later, our recon drones sent back photographs which indicated we had destroyed the enemy’s ground base camp for the most part.

  We then sent in troops to mop up. We were able to take their remaining troops as our prisoners.

  We had our first victory and had a little celebration acknowledging the heroes with pomp and circumstance, as it were, after pinning on their medals. It felt good to have something to celebrate.

  Spring came much too soon and the Atlanteans stepped up their attacks. We fought them tooth and nail and managed to make them retreat several times as they stormed the remaining two compromised star gates.

  Star gates are designed to keep unwanted space ships out of the Earth s atmosphere. If a ship tries to run a star gate, laser guided missiles will be launched against the would-be intruder. They are not fool proof however. They can be overwhelmed by a large enough contingent of war ships pounding them from many angles at the same time.

  They will make the price high for many ships that come into their range, but they are limited in how many ships they can destroy before they too can be destroyed.

  Over the nine months of the battle, the Atlanteans were able to calculate the price they would pay to destroy a star gate.

  So far, we had been able to concentrate most of our forces at the two compromised star gates. We were holding them at bay for the most part. The few that did get through were no match for our domed city weapons and they soon retreated.

  To our shock, we learned that the Atlantean Empire had sent in hundreds of additional star ships and had called all their forces back to the moon base to regroup.

  On the way from Atlantis, their home planet, the Armada of additional Atlantean forces encountered and destroyed most of our reinforcements from Starsis. The ones not destroyed had turned and headed back to Starsis rather than loose any more ships. Starsis sent us a message that the help they were sending to us had been totally out matched by shear numbers of enemy craft.