Alaya could see that the weight of responsibility was weighing on her husband and decided he needed some good news. “Rogers’s wife had their baby today.”
“Really, Hon. He never said a word. Was he there for the birth?”
“I’m afraid not,” Alaya said. “It happened while we were dealing with the Saltic ship in the other system.”
“They were having a little girl, right?”
“Yes a little girl, she is adorable.”
“What did they name her?” Slone asked. Roger had fallen for a young blonde legionary and Slone had the honor of marrying them on the way to recover the Sakkara.
“They wanted her to have a name that reflected his old Earth African ancestry and Astrid wanted her old Earth Scandinavian ancestry represented so they settled on Nubia Ebba Umgabe.”
Slone got up and went to a cabinet and brought out a small bottle of wine, just enough for two glasses. He poured and gave his wife one glass. “To little Nubia Ebba. May we make it back home for her sake and for the sake of all the children aboard.” They clinked glasses and had a sip. They slowly drank their wine and had a snack as they discussed possible scenarios before the staff meeting.
The Tempestas reached the fifth planet and went into orbit. The serpents were keeping the ship invisible by switching operators every eight hours. The department heads and military leaders of the ship met in the conference room to discuss how to solve the problem. After almost three hours of discussion and planning, they felt they had a viable way to achieve their goal. As the meeting ended, Slone said, “Alright everyone, we agree to a full period of rest. Keep a minimum crew while in orbit and make sure the serpents keep us invisible. We will strike in 18 hours, when the Saltic base and the ships are rotated back behind the planet to make sure we are on station before they rotate back to face us. Get some rest. Dismissed.”
The meeting broke up and they all left to get some rest. The Slones, Gardners and the rest of the families with children took their children to their quarters, spent quality time with them, and put them to bed. The parents then thought of the day ahead and the dangers they faced. None blamed the Republic for their fate, since no one could have known what the Sakkara held, but they all worried about the future. The ship began to stir several hours before the time and at an hour before departure, the klaxon sounded to bring the entire ship awake. All of the children were returned to the children’s section, that part of the children’s/sickbay complex was sealed, and it’s internal life support was turned on, as it was for sickbay which would only be sealed if the surrounding compartments depressurized. It also had its own life support.
Slone went onto the bridge, along with his wife. Captain Shegai and Commander Hammond were also invited to join them on the bridge, since they had no position to fill on the ship. Slone turned to his navigator, “Paul, take us out of orbit and set course for the fourth planet.”
“Yes Captain.”
As Slone watched, the ship pulled out of orbit and started to leave the fifth planet behind and head to the fourth. Slone then gave his next order, “Tom, open the battle channel.”
“Yes Captain.”
“This is Captain Slone. Launch all serpent ships and the Mary Rose.” From the bridge, Slone had no idea if the ships launched, but Hister was monitoring the invisibility console.
“Sss. Captain Slone, all ships have launched and are moving to their assigned positions.”
“Thank you, Hister. Seal the flight deck.”
The armor rose out of the hull to seal the entire flight deck behind the bridge. The Tempestas and its fleet of smaller ships now formed up in a formation with the Mary Rose taking the lead and the Tempestas behind it. The twenty serpent ships formed a line of ten along each flank of the larger ships. Only Hister and the serpents on the invisibility consoles of the ships could see the actual disposition, but each vessel knew its position in the formation. There was a five-hour trip to the destination. As they approached the fourth planet, they put the enemy on maximum magnification. There were five Saltic ships in orbit, one as large as a human destroyer and the others about the size of the corvette Mary Rose. The targets for each assault group had not been picked in advance, since there had been no pre-attack scouting.
“Attention all commands, our mission will be to destroy the four smaller ships and capture the larger ship. As we discussed each squadron of five serpent ships is to take out one of the smaller vessels. The Mary Rose will attack the larger vessel.”
The idea was to attack them invisible and confuse them. What the Romani had no idea about was the quality of the Saltic in an open fight and if they could penetrate the hard hulls of their ships. Slone hoped to avoid using the nukes but each squadron of five serpent ships had one with a nuclear tipped missile. It was the job of the other four to either destroy the ship or make sure the missile got through. Slone left it to the serpent squadron leaders to determine which ship their squadron would attack and he could hear the serpents speaking among themselves in Serpent Speak over the battle channel. The fleet stayed in formation until a half hour before contact. At that time, Slone spoke into the battle channel, “All squadrons break to your targets. Begin the cadence attack speed.”
The measured drumbeat of the cadence began at a rate faster than a simple advance and the serpent ships moved to full speed and the two human ships increased to full speed and moved towards the large vessel. As they approached the Saltic ships, Slone could see that surprise was complete as no reaction was seen from the enemy. When they were one hundred thousand kilometers from the enemy, Slone said, “Set the cadence to charge speed.”
Immediately the rate of the drumbeat doubled again and the battle rage built up among the Romani. “Cohorts one and two, prepare for boarding action. All other cohorts stand ready.” The first and second cohorts, consisting of mixed humans and serpents, loaded into twelve boarding shuttles.
The first contact was made by the serpent ship squadrons. They began firing their railguns while remaining invisible. They followed these with missiles and then more rail shots. The Saltic were in a synchronous orbit above their outpost on the fourth planet. Fortunately, for the Romani, they were in a rest period with a minimal crew at the helm and many of their number on shore leave on the planet. Suddenly they were hit by the rail shots and missiles out of nowhere. The ship’s captains called their crews to battle stations, but they were woefully undermanned. Saltic weapon control was governed from an elevated platform in the center of the elongated cube, wherein reclined the weapon control officer. When he reached his station, he then activated the weapon systems and began scanning the surroundings for targets. The only problem was, there was none. This particular officer was in the ship farthest from the formation and he was a bit more experienced than some of the others were. He should have been in a higher position and rank at his age, but he had gotten into some trouble concerning the female of a superior officer and made the mistake of being caught. Now he was the weapons officer of the escort of a science vessel. They were here to check on a science outpost on the fourth planet of this system. While they were here, they had been tasked with picking up some humans whose brains were needed as computer control nodes on a battle cruiser back home in the Andromeda galaxy. They had already sent two escort vessels into the human occupied system. One was sent for the pickup and the second one was sent to find out what happened to the first. In both cases, the wormholes they traveled through had spontaneously closed and they were not reopened. It was beginning to look like something suspicious had happened to them. What was odd about that is the fact that there was nothing in the human system that could have hurt them other than natural phenomena. He hoped that was the case. Those ideas were dispelled when the first rail shots hit his ship. The impacts had slammed into the hull and caused a small breach that was widened by a weapon unknown to him, and this was followed by more impacts. The resultant breaches started to bleed atmosphere and the few crewmembers in that compartment managed to make it out
with only shrapnel wounds. Two things confused the weapon’s officer; from where were the shots coming, and what was that new type of weapon? The humans had no way of knowing that missile weapons were unknown to the Saltic. The order came to break orbit and maneuver to meet the threat, but there was no threat visible. Two more of those strange weapons hit the ship but this time the weapons officer watched closely on his visual feed and saw that they were coming from a certain area. He manually aimed his weapons at the very spot where they seemed to originate and fired all of them at once. The small ships had five pulse generators on each side that covered an arc of 180 degrees. The pulses consisted of focused energy using the same crystals found on some methane moons and planets. As the bursts of energy closed the gap between the escort vessel and the invisible serpent ships attacking it, they spread out a bit. The serpents saw them coming but the spread was such that some of them were going to hit something. The pulse generators fired at the rate of five pulses a second and the weapons officer did a three second burst. This resulted in 15 pulses heading towards the invisible serpent ships. Most of them missed, but three hit with two hits on one serpent ship and one on another. The double hit damaged the wing and hit the bridge of one ship, resulting in three of the serpent crew dying and the other two quickly leaving the bridge and sealing it. They entered escape pods and abandoned ship as forward momentum of the ship carried it towards the Saltic ship that fired on them. The Saltic were still slow to react and were just trying to break orbit and form up for a defense. As the Saltic weapons officer watched, the enemy ship became visible and the enemy abandoned it. He was just preparing to fire on the escape pods, when he realized the danger from the abandoned ship. It was traveling at high speed and it was unmanned. As a result, the momentum was carrying it towards his ship. He took a quick look at the monitors and saw that none of the other ships had bothered to fire on the enemy locations. They were all nothing but a bunch of children with no experience and it was about to result in their end. Whoever this enemy was, their ships were invisible and they had a powerful weapon that was rocket propelled. He knew how the collision with the enemy ship was going to end, so he pushed some buttons and his weapons position became a cylindrical container that sealed and fired out of the bottom of the ship to form an escape pod. As he looked at the rear projection, he could see that no one else sensed the danger, since no other escape pods exited the ship. As he watched in horror, the crippled enemy ship collided with his ship and this resulted in a massive explosion that destroyed both vessels.
The weapons officer now looked at what was happening to the rest of the small fleet. Whoever this enemy was, they were relentless. He knew three of his shots landed, but the other enemy ship must have had only mild damage, since it was still invisible. Two more escort ships received fatal damage and fell into the atmosphere, only to burn up with all aboard. One escort made a run for it and cleared the battlefield, but with considerable damage. Somehow, they managed to open a wormhole, enter it and close it behind them. He had no idea where they went but knew they would not get help here before the science vessel was taken. The ship they were supposed to protect had no weapons and he could see two smaller vessels appearing out of nowhere moving towards the science vessel and entering the hangar bay. The scientists were civilians and would not be able to repel the enemy. The weapons officer also now knew that the science ship was the target. As he drifted away from the battle, a strange ship materialized next to him and it approached and opened its side over what appeared to be a wing like the flying creatures of the home world. Strange aliens pulled his escape pod into the side of the ship and closed the hold. He was not sure what would happen now, but they did not attempt to take him out of the pod. He hoped for a quick death at the hands of these aliens.
Slone sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge of the Tempestas and watched the attack unfold. It started out as a textbook assault and ended with the main target captured. Only two things went wrong. One of the enemy ships chose to run and not fight. As a result, it generated a wormhole and escaped. The only ship that was successful in its defense managed to take out one of the invisible serpent ships and killed three of its crew. The ship then acted as a missile and collided with the enemy and they were both destroyed. Just before its destruction, the alien ship ejected an escape pod, which was successfully retrieved. The smaller ships were prepared to do combat. The larger ship, which was the target of the operation, was abandoned soon after the battle started and all of the escape pods went down to the planet. Engineering techs were already examining the larger vessel’s wormhole drive. All ships became visible and the serpent ships were flying combat space patrols. So far, there was no response from the planet.
The escape capsule containing a solitary Saltic was brought to the Tempestas and off loaded on the flight deck. The capsule was decontaminated and then opened. Romani guards pointed their weapons at the alien and Slone came over wearing the translator he took from the Saltic Commander.
“Don’t try anything and you will not be hurt,” Slone said and waited while the translator converted human speech into the odd squeaking speech of the Saltic.
The weapons officer listened to the translation and began to rub his mouthparts together to form the squeaking that conveyed their language. The translator then converted this into human speech. “Who are you and why did you attack us? We are a scientific mission studying this system.”
“You came here to harvest human brains for your computers and the wormhole drive you put into human space brought us here. Tell us how to control it that we may return. Then you and your colony here will survive. Otherwise, we will destroy you from orbit.”
“You can do that? With one of those infernal weapons of yours?”
Slone was beginning to realize that he had given the Saltic more credit than they deserved. Each species in the universe seemed to have strengths and weaknesses. The strength of the Saltic was their ability to mix biological organisms with electronic devices. In the ways of warfare, they were not the danger he thought them when he was in Andromeda. Now they thought the humans had a special weapon, what could that be all about?”
“What is this weapon of ours that you so fear?”
“The one you use with the rocket engines. The Saltic have nothing like that.”
Slone realized they were talking about missiles. Humans and serpents had developed missiles independently. It never occurred to Slone that a sentient race would rocket into space and never consider using rockets to deliver weapons. Could it be that the Saltic never use bombardment and never have? He would leave that for another time, but it was good to know since it meant they would not have a defense against missiles. Slone took the translator from around his neck and handed it to Julia Hammond.
“Commander Hammond, take this and try to find out from the Saltic how their drive works. We have secured their ship and we can cannibalize their drive to replace anything missing from ours. If need be we will us their ship to open the wormhole.” Slone turned to the Romani guards, “Keep the prisoner under guard at all times. Make sure he answers the Commander’s questions.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Slone then said to Diana Gardner, who was standing on the flight deck as they questioned the prisoner, “Diana, take a shuttle over to the Saltic ship and examine their drive. Also ask Primary Centurion Marshal to leave as many guards as he thinks necessary and return with the remaining troops to the ship.”
“Yes, Captain,” Diana said and immediately went over to a shuttle and left for the captured vessel.
Slone went over to his wife and indicated she should follow him back to the bridge. “Alaya, I think we found out some important information about the Saltic. If I had known this before, the Hayden incident may have ended differently. They are completely unaware of missiles as weapons. Knowing that, we should have attacked them rather than tried to outrun them.”
Alaya gave that some thought. “I still don’t know we would have done that. They were not att
acking us until they used that EMP weapon and we would have been the aggressor had we attacked them. We had no way of knowing what their intent was.”
“As usual, you’re right about that. However, we know it now and I plan to use it to the best of our abilities. Since the rail shots penetrated the smaller ships, I’m going to assume our cannons can do more damage.”
“You think we’ll have to fight them again then?”
“Yes, and soon I would guess. One ship got away. If I were them, I would send the biggest ship I have to deal with the problem. At least that is all I hope they do. If they send a fleet, we will be in big trouble here. I purposely kept the Tempestas out of the fight to prevent any irreversible damage. That will not be the case if they send a capital ship. I can’t keep the Tempestas invisible and still be able to use her to maximum advantage. I am also going to assume their capital ships have their EMP weapon and we have to stay clear of that at all costs. If we get taken down by the EMP, we will all end up in the brain lab.”
Alaya and Christopher looked at each other and a shiver went down their spines. They were the only ones alive who saw the brain collection on the Saltic ship in the Andromeda galaxy and they did not want to end up there waiting to become part of some ship or computer. By the time their conversation was over, they were on the bridge and Slone was back in the captain’s chair. He looked over at Roger Umgabe, “Roger, any activity in the system?”
“No, Captain. All quiet and the serpent ships are maintaining a combat space patrol.”
“Order half the serpent ships back and have them refuel and rearm, then have them rotate for the combat space patrol.”
“Yes, captain.”
“Any activity from the planetary outpost?”
“None.”
“Keep alert for any wormhole formation. The ship that got away must have gone somewhere.”
The Sakkara Page 13
