“Perfect” replied Inman, “let’s use the element of surprise to our advantage. Maybe we can escape the encounter with no loss of life.”
The next seven days moved along at a snail’s pace; it seemed to Inman as though time was standing still. Hope and despair took their turns at the emotions of the executive team as the inevitable encounter with Silirc drew near.
The countdown clock was at a little over one hour when Inman called his team together for one last walk through.
“Bo” Inman started, “are the Silirc still mesmerized by the apparitions?”
“Yes sir, they are spending more time in rituals, and there seems to be quite a buzz in their fleet over the appearance of their hero” replied Bo Jr.
“Good, Cerro are the troops all outfitted with body armor and the plasma weapons?” queried Inman.
“We do not have enough of the plasma rifles, but we armed the rest with automatic large magazine rifles equipped with silencers” reported Cerro.
“Flight crews in the entire fleet have been drilled and re-drilled on the entire plan, everyone has their orders, and I cannot think of anything we might have overlooked. I need to get to the command center, please report to your operations posts and let’s pull this off without any casualties everyone.”
At the moment the fleet synchronized speed with the Silirc fleet Bo Junior's jukebox started delivering destabilizing fuels to the massive antimatter reactors powering the Silirc warp drives. The resulting explosions were instantaneous as Silirc ships began to explode into giant balls of fire. Within seconds hundreds of ships across the leading edge of their fleet spread debris back into oncoming ships and almost as fast as they had arrived their entire fleet dropped out of warp.
Inman and his team had the of shuttle fighters upon them instantly.
“Bring down all of the shell generators” Commanded Inman.
Cerro’s boarding parties ported to the bridge of hundreds of the largest warships in the Silirc fleet.
“There is no one here” reported the invading force.
“They must be waiting upon the apparitions,” thought Inman.
“Destroy everything you can on the bridge; we will give you fifteen seconds on each bridge before porting you to another one.”
“Newman” shouted Inman, “are our civilian ships positioning themselves among the Silirc civilian ships?”
“Yes Sir” replied Newman.
“They must all but touch them; I don’t want the Silirc to be able to get firing solutions on our civilian ships” commanded Inman.
“Aye sir” responded Newman.
Inman looked at the countdown clock, only thirty seconds had been taken off of the clock and so far no return fire. Hundreds of Silirc ships were now incapacitated, but Inman knew it was only a drop in the bucket, they had counted over one million ships in the Silirc fleet, and over half of them were warships, and many of those were as large as the Titan.
“Sir, we are starting to take fire, and other Silirc ships are moving in to support the lead ships we are attacking” reported Cerro.
“Make sure the shuttle fighters are engaging them at our perimeter, I don’t want them within our attack zone without paying for it” Inman commanded.
“Commence firing” Inman ordered.
Plasma weapons lit up the night sky as the impact of the high energy weapons created fireballs covering large sections of disintegrating hulls.
“They have their shielding offline” Cerro shouted in the comlink.
Inman looked back up at the countdown clock; a minute and a half were off of the five-minute countdown clock.
“Bennett, how are we coming with the shell restart sequence” queried Inman.
“We are on schedule Will, should be done on time.”
At the moment Will Inman felt like they might get out of this without any casualties the Titan started taking fire. The shielding was absorbing the energy, but it was only a matter of time before hull breaches started showing up.
“Many of the ships are bringing up their shields sir” reported Cerro, “and our boarding force is meeting heavy resistance as they board and attack each bridge and casualty reports are starting to come in, so far we have five dead and twenty wounded.”
“Retrieve our soldiers” commanded Inman.
“Aye sir” responded Cerro.
Seconds later Cerro reported all soldiers including the dead and wounded were back onboard their ships.
“How many ships were we able to incapacitate” queried Inman.
“We brought down almost a thousand of them; the dead ships are shielding us from the bulk of the Silirc attack as planned” Cerro reported.
Inman looked back up at the clock, only two minutes left before they could run to safety.
“Perfect” Inman responded, “How are the shuttle fighters holding up John?”
“We have two incapacitated; we have retrieved the crews, two dead and four casualties. We are dragging the damaged ships back to the UB’s, but they are taking heavy fire on the perimeter” reported Cerro.
“Bo Stockman” Inman paged into his comlink, “how are the civilian ships holding up?”
“So far so good sir, I do not think we have attracted much attention” reported Bo.
“I want to know the instant you start taking fire” commanded Inman.
“I will” responded Bo.
Will glanced back at the clock, “one minute left” he thought as another volley of weapons fire scoring direct hits on the Titan.
“Will, some of the smaller civilian ships have their shell generators up and are departing for the rendezvous location” reported Bennett.
“Commander, UB2 is in trouble, they are concentrating fire on her, and we only have a few seconds before we have a catastrophic failure of her hull. I have two heavy battleships moving in to shield her, but there are lots of civilian casualties already” reported Cerro.
“Very well” Inman replied.
Will gazed at the countdown clock again as it approached thirty seconds.
“Sir, we have a very large enemy ship headed directly for us, I think they are going to ram us” shouted Newman.
“Evasive maneuvers” commanded Inman.
“I am trying sir, but it is getting closer.”
“Concentrate fire on her bridge” commanded Inman.
“Aye Sir” replied Newman, seconds later the report was more encouraging, “she is dead in the water sir.”
“Bennett, once the shell comes back online I want to tow this disabled ship with us to our rendezvous location and get some intelligence” commanded Inman.
“Aye sir” replied Bennett.
Will Inman stood on the bridge and took in the panoramic view from where he stood. Ships were on fire all around them, myriads of enemy ships were closing in on them, destroying their people to get at the fleet huddled inside the Silirc barricade. Will knew they had only seconds left before they met with total defeat.
“How long until the shell generators come online Leo?” queried Inman.
“We need another thirty seconds sir” replied Bennett.
Will Inman knew he did not have another thirty seconds; casualties would be in the thousands if this continued another thirty seconds.
“Open a communication channel with the Silirc Commander” commanded Inman.
Instantly the image of the Silirc Supreme Commander appeared on the monitor, “I am commander Schlickman, Surrender your fleet, or we will destroy you.”
“We would like to negotiate a truce” Will said buying time.
“No truce, bring down your weapons and stand down, prepare to be boarded” commanded Schlickman.
“Schlickman sounds like a Nazi SS officer” Will thought to himself as he glanced at the countdown clock.
“I agree to your terms” Inman responded, “stop your fleet from firing on us, and I will give orders to stand down.”
Schlickman waved to another luminous figure on his bridge, and within seconds
the deadly weapons fire ceased.
“Cease fire” Inman commanded.
Instantly the entire fleet went silent.
Inman glanced up at the clock and noticed the countdown clock had expired and the shell generator indicator in the corner of his console lit up.
“Get us out of here” commanded Inman.
Instantly the fleet was on its way to the rendezvous location at warp nine.
“Do we have the Silirc battleship in tow?” Inman asked Newman.
“No sir, we were unable to get it setup before the order to depart” Newman answered.
“Cerro, get a damage report and join me and the rest of the team in the conference room” ordered Inman.
“Aye aye, sir” responded Cerro.
Inman sat down at his console in the conference room and sipped the cup of coffee Evelyn brought him. His fingers shook as he typed in the commands which would bring up the incoming casualty and damage reports from ships all around the fleet. A sickening wave of nausea came over him as he read the UB2 casualty report, over half of the crew was either KIA or wounded, the ship was badly damaged.
One by one the other members of the team entered the conference room as Will continued scanning damage reports.
Will looked up the ETA to join the rest of the fleet, at their current speed they would join up within the hour.
John Cerro was the last to walk in; his countenance was grim as he sat down and rolled out the holographic image system before everyone. Cerro manipulated the controls and images of damaged ships appeared over and over again as the team silently gazed at the massive damage they had taken at the hands of the Silirc military machine.
“How could they inflict so much damage so quickly” asked young Elizabeth Murphy Stockman.
“We took heavy casualties, and our fleet is going to need time in dry dock to recover from the battle” Cerro reported.
“Ok, I want to start with the numbers, how many KIA and how many wounded” Will ask in a shaky voice.
“We have two hundred and fifty-three dead and over one thousand injured, almost two hundred of the injured are serious, and many will require prosthetics” Cerro reported.
Silence came over the team as they contemplated the seriousness of John Cerro’s report.
“Ok, I want a complete debriefing on what went wrong and what went right. Let’s start with what went right” Will replied.
“We destroyed or badly damaged over one thousand Silirc ships; their casualties are in the tens of thousands. We bought some time; it will take them months to get their damaged ships back into service, maybe even a year” Cerro reported.
“Some other good news Will” began Bo Senior, “our botanists were able to port over large portions of their organic food production system. They are using some advanced farming technologies, and we now have the ability to learn how they feed such a large fleet with so few biospheres.”
“Did we learn anything about their new propulsion systems, we need to know how they traversed such a large expanse of space so quickly” Inman queried.
“We ported over the computer and navigation systems off of one of the ships before the soldiers destroyed the bridge” reported Bo Junior.
“Excellent, let me know as soon as you figure out how they did it Bo” Inman commanded.
“The other encouraging thing was the success of the boarding parties; we had zero enemy fire casualties, the casualties, and injuries we experienced were due to an unintended explosion on one of the bridges, seems the timing was off and the charges went off before being ported to their next assignment. If it were not for the body armor, we would have lost them all” reported Cerro.
The next report drove the cost of the time synchronization mission off the charts, over two hundred dead, six shuttle fighters destroyed or badly damaged, the UB2 had almost severed into and the Titan had hull breaches in six different places, one of the breaches went clear through the ship.
“We have arrived at the rendezvous spot Commander,” said Newman in Inman’s comlink.
“Get a navigation solution for the earth and take us there as fast as the fleet can travel” commanded Inman, “and let me know when you have an ETA calculated.”
“Ahead of you sir” replied Newman, “we will be there in a little over two days.
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others,
but far enough ahead to motivate them. ~ John C. Maxwell
Chapter Fourteen – Earth Leadership
W ill Inman ordered the fleet to hold up just outside the asteroid belt where their presence would not alarm the governments of earth. From their position, they could resupply the fleet’s water supply and mine minerals and metals the UB’s could use to rebuild damaged ships.
“Communicating with Earth was going to be tricky,” Inman thought to himself, “I would have a hard time believing what I have to tell them. The only thing to do is just tell them we are coming, who we are and let them know we will be in orbit and not to be alarmed.”
As Will Inman contemplated his meeting with Leaders from The Alliance of Nations he kept running his explanation of what had happened to the orbiter and the people aboard. He had to explain what was going to happen to the human race if they did not act. As he contemplated possible responses from the world’s leaders, his thoughts wandered off to make mental notes of the requests he was going to make.
“I have General Lockman on the comlink commander” Newman announced.
“I am on my way to the bridge, tell him I will be right with him” responded Inman, “Put him on the main deck monitor.”
“Will Inman” General Lockman shouted as Will walked onto the Titan’s bridge.
“Yes General, it is good to see you after so many years” Inman replied.
“From my calculations, it has only been a couple of days” replied General Lockman, “and how in the world are you communicating with us like this, and where are you, I do not recognize your location?”
“We have a lot to talk about General. I will explain everything when you get up here” replied Inman.
“You know I am no longer able to make the trip into orbit Will.”
“No need sir” Inman motioned to Newman, and General Lockman was instantly standing in front of him on the bridge.
“Please follow me to our conferencing room sir” Inman requested.
“I am not going anywhere until you explain what is going on here” replied an angry Lockman.
Will motioned to Newman and instantly the two were standing in the conference room, each next to their appointed seats next to the rest of the executive staff.
“Have a seat General” John Cerro requested.
Will introduced the General to each of his staff and lastly to Ambassador Loken who did his best to explain what had transpired since the departure of the Tre hundreds of years ago. The General just could not or would not accept the explanation, and no one blamed him. The harder they tried to explain things the more bizarre it sounded, even to the other members of the team. Soon it became obvious they were just going to have to go right to phase two of the plan.
“Newman, port the Alliance President and the other ten Alliance Presidents to the personnel arrival bay and have a team awaiting them to serve their needs when they are ready, please have them all escorted to the observation deck, we will all meet them there” commanded Inman.
“Aye aye, Commander,” said Newman.
“Commander?” spouted Lockman, “so now you are a commander?”
Inman did not answer but instead motioned the team to depart for the observation deck.
“General Lockman, Ambassador Loken is not human, he is of the Woles people who were driven almost to extension by a rival people. His people are now a part of our fleet” explained Inman.
The General did not answer as they entered the observation deck to view the giant sphere so familiar to General Lockman and so seemingly foreign to the rest of them.
“How did you get me up here,”
asked Lockman.
“You were transported through a dimensional portal made possible by one of Bennett’s shell generators” Evelyn Reeder responded.
“So the shell generator is operational?” queried Lockman.
“Yes sir, and so are both the warp drive and the displacement drive Dr. Reeder developed” Bo Jr. offered, “Sir we have visited and explored three other galaxies in the time we have been away.
The conversation was interrupted as the Alliance of Nations leadership stepped onto the observation deck.
“General Lockman! Are you behind this” shouted US President Darren Shelton.
“Mr. President” Will Inman interrupted, “please allow me to explain. Time is of the essence; we brought you all here because an unstoppable alien race called the Silirc are on their way to attack Earth. The Silirc are a luminous species bent upon the domination of other races.”
“I am sorry young man, but you will have to forgive me, I do not know who you are, where we are or how we got here. Would you be so kind as to illuminate us” President Shelton sarcastically responded.
“Sir, I am Commander Will Inman. Before we left orbit, I was the commanding officer in charge of the Earth Orbiters. You are aboard the Titan, the Flagship of our fleet. You were transported here through a dimensional portal device. We built this ship, and the rest of the ships in the fleet over a period of hundreds of years.”
“Commander Inman, I demand you free us, and you turn yourself over to authorities” commanded Shelton.
“Newman, take us back to the fleet and let me know when we arrive” commanded Inman over his comlink.
“I am sorry Mr. President; the only way to get you to believe us is to show you the reality of our situation. I have directed our helmsman to take us out to the rest of our fleet where we will join our battle group and the civilian fleet” responded Inman, “the human race, as you know it, is about to become extinct unless we all act together to stop and destroy them.”
Battle Group Titan: Beyond Warp ((Battle Group Titan Series Vol 1)) Page 17
