by Ron Francis
He had still received no word from Earth, so he sent transmissions to Stamdall and Geshern and ordered them to begin evacuating everyone they could because help wasn’t going to get to them in time.
The Churchill fired its main batteries again and Collingsworth took some comfort at seeing an alien destroyer and a gunship light up the space around them, but his comfort was short lived as he watched four more of his ships obliterated. He angrily realized that they couldn’t win. Three hundred fifty was just too many ships. His SSE ships were availing themselves very well, but the reality was that they could not destroy the enemy fast enough to win the engagement.
The eighty ships there were overmatched, and after almost forty minutes of hard fighting, Collingsworth finally had to call for the fleet to retreat to light space. Forty-seven Coalition vessels remained and they had destroyed only thirty-four of the alien attackers. They had destroyed only one more ship than they had lost, it just wasn’t going to be enough to save the Coalition from losing its two outermost planets. They retreated past the Coalition’s last two worlds, Stamdall and Geshern, continuing to send warnings for anyone who could to get out. They regrouped at Triton and prepared to send refugees on to Polisia. Every ship with defenses both public and private were put in space to await the onslaught. Triton actually had decent planetary defenses as well as a Planetary Defense Force of thirty-six ships. That gave him eighty-three vessels as well as a couple dozen private ships with military upgrades to defend Triton with. If reinforcements do not arrive from Earth soon, we’ll lose Triton as well. I can’t believe Earth is letting the aliens have two of our world without a fight. If I survive, I’m going to have some strong words for our new president and his allies. I’ll be talking with Admiral Bliney as well. No matter what happens, this is likely the last battle of my career.
Seventeen hours later, eleven warships limped in to Triton escorting fourteen passenger vessels, nine cargo haulers and almost eighty private vessels. This was all that remained of the Coalition’s two outermost worlds. Admiral Collingsworth asked how many enemy vessels were destroyed and was dismayed when the answer was only five. Both worlds had been subjected to orbital bombarded. The likelihood of there being many survivors was not high. Admiral Collingsworth conscripted the eleven remaining warships to the defense of Triton and sent the rest of the vessels to Polisia. With the Romanovs there, he knew Polisia would put up a heck of a fight. He only hoped to even the odds a bit before they had to.
Collingsworth now had ninety-four military vessels, twenty-eight private vessels and some pretty good planetary defenses. He hoped to give the aliens as much as they could take before falling back to Polisia. He knew that he still wouldn’t have nearly enough to stop three hundred ten ships. He sent a transmission to the Prime Minister of Triton, telling him to evacuate as many of his people as he could. He didn’t think he would be able to hold the planet. He also contacted Earth again, telling them what had happened and asking them to reinforce Polisia. He was surprised when the President said he would not. The bigger surprise was when Admiral Bliney ordered him and his forty-seven ships back to Earth. He asked them why Earth needed so many when their new allies had four hundred ships there. He was told if he didn’t leave that moment, he would be court-martialed. He ended the transmission and for the first time in his career, disobeyed a direct order. He gave each of his ship’s commanding officers the opportunity to go, but none of them took him up on it. As he awaited the coming battle, he was very angry at Earth’s leaders. I’ve served this Coalition with honor my whole adult life. I thought I was serving leaders with the same honor. I guess I was wrong. How can they so callously sit back while millions of lives are extinguished? Who exactly is in charge of our Coalition anyway?
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Admiral Collingsworth was as prepared as he could be for the coming alien armada, but he knew there was little chance of victory. He only hoped to evacuate as many people as possible before falling back to Polisia where the Marcos and Romanov families were bound to have a legitimate shot at victory. Part of him wanted to take his fleet there now and insure that victory, but part of him just couldn’t leave these people to try and fight and flee with no support. I may have already thrown my career away, but I wouldn’t shirk my duties to preserve my own life. I’ve sworn an oath to protect the Coalition and its citizens, and even if its leaders no longer felt bound to that oath, I do not considered myself released from it. I will hold Triton until every ship that can leave has left, then I’ll make my final stand with the Romanovs on Polisia.
He had sent all of his fleet’s shuttles to the planet to rescue as many people as possible before the aliens struck. He already knew what lie in store for the bulk of Triton’s people and he couldn’t believe the Coalition was unwilling to defend it. Stamdall and Geshern had suffered orbital bombardments, killing almost their entire population, and he knew that the same would happen on Triton. Hundreds of shuttles would rescue thousands of people. Polisia had sent ten luxury space liners to ferry people off of Triton. Each trip each ship could make would save almost fifteen thousand people. Large cargo vessels were leaving full of people and almost every private ship on the planet was already gone.
People began rioting to try and get spots on whatever ships were still available as a panic gripped the people. Other people decided to take as many supplies as they could carry and hide out in the mountains or caves. Collingsworth mused that those people might be the ones that actually survived what was coming, unless the aliens landed troops. His captains all knew to open fire as soon as any ships dropped out of light space. They would not be unprepared. He was expecting just over three hundred ships, and he was hoping to hold on long enough to take that down to two hundred and let whoever was still on the planet safely escape. He would then take whatever ships remained to Polisia to shore up their defenses. He was brought out of his musings by the words “Enemy fleet approaching.” The young officer who had given the warning looked scared, but he continued monitoring his station diligently.
“Open fire,” Collingsworth ordered as hard light shot out from ninety-four vessels and eleven mounted plasma cannons. Their volley took the alien armada by surprise, destroying several ships instantly as all of his people kept firing. Unfortunately, they were facing close to four hundred ships, not three hundred. They must have picked up reinforcements for their push to Polisia. He was no longer sure about their chances. By the time almost forty alien vessels had been destroyed, they had their shields up and began dealing out some serious punishment. The SSE Vipers were availing themselves quite well, while the fighters produced by earth’s military were barely holding their own. The bottom line was that there were just too many enemy fighters for them to overcome.
Collingsworth still didn’t know too much about these aliens the Jarlevians had allied themselves with, but he knew one of the groups were called the Barrafoss. Their cruisers were large and intimidating. The shape of the ship couldn’t really be identified. Amorphous was the first word that came to his mind. Weapons were strewn at random throughout the ship and the only way you could tell which side was the back was by the engines. These big ships began dishing out some heavy punishment to Earth’s battle cruisers. The plasma cannons were still taking aliens out at a pretty good rate, and the six remaining SSE ships were also dishing out some serious damage. It wouldn’t be enough, there were just too many of them. The fleet’s other Leviathan was surrounded by five ships and took them all out, but sustained some damage. Almost instantly, five more surrounded it and while it did take out three more, it was destroyed. He also saw one of the War Hawks go out in a blaze of glory.
His Leviathan, the Churchill, was soon surrounded by eight ships, but it was a ploy. His three War Hawks broke off their other engagements and fired on the ships surrounding their flagship, while the Churchill picked the aliens off one by one. Marcos really knew what he was doing when he designed these fleet groups. A good commanding officer could defend himself agai
nst a much larger force in these ships. Unfortunately, the alien force is far too large. While he was going after a Jarlevian Cruiser, he received word that the last ship from Triton had made it to orbit. He hated to run, and he knew the planet was doomed, but it was doomed either way. As the last of the planetary defenses was destroyed, he gave the order that he knew would haunt him forever and jumped to light space. He had lost fifty-three ships, but he had taken just over one hundred alien ships out. Now he hoped that Polisia had a miracle waiting for them.
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Polisia’s governing council received word of what was happening, and what was heading their way. They immediately called Nina, Serge and Ariel in to help them plan a defense. Serge hadn’t told them he had upgraded their defenses, and didn’t intend to. This was one secret no one would know about until they needed to. The Polisian Defense Force had thirty-six ships. Serge had also refurbished an additional eleven for planetary defense. Sea Side Enterprises had their original twelve, and the twelve they had liberated from Earth. That gave them a total of seventy-one ships plus their defenses. They prayed it would be enough. When they had decided on the best course of action, they began making plans for the refugees. Early estimates put the total at just over four hundred thousand. Each of the three planets had contained millions. Nina was frustrated that Earth refused to send help. She knew it was because the ship building facility was way behind schedule. She was going to have a conversation with this new president that he would not enjoy, if they lived through this.
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Jesse was beginning to buy Suzy’s theories about the diminishing returns of the recovery pod. He had only needed twenty-one minutes in the recovery pod from the attack, but he had slept almost a day instead of ten or eleven hours. When he woke up, his arm was still really sore and his head hurt. Suzy carefully tested him and took down all of the results. She had actually adjusted her theory. The recovery pod would work for life for the average person who might only need it once every year or two, but for someone in it as much as Jesse, that was when the diminishing returns occurred. She theorized he shouldn’t use it again for a couple years and he hoped more than anything he wouldn’t need to. Here it was almost a week later, and his arm still hurt.
The fleets from Hyperia and Ginderbar were due any day now, and Jesse decided to take Endeavor to mine some of the minerals he believed were the key to opening the conduit. This was to be Endeavor’s last official mission of their trip. Then, it was a week of downtime followed by waiting in space for however long it took for the Conduit to open. The journey was almost over and the whole crew was excited about going home. Jesse planned to spend at least a day or two of that downtime alone with Kimi. With each moment he spent with her, he fell more and more in love with her. He loved every second of their relationship. He once again found himself anxious to get home and let everyone know about his relationship. Nina and Ariel are going to be so excited about this, he thought. Josiah had been as good as his word and found out the attack had come from men in Challa’s pirate group. He had learned that Challa was the first officer on Garrinoras’ ship and inherited it, so to speak, when his boss had died. They also found out the pirate fleet had broken up into four groups, but they didn’t know why.
Josiah and Reece were outside the ship, using Kaldorian mining equipment to get Jesse his precious mineral when the attack came. The Retribution arrived, flanked by two Frigates and two Gunships. There wasn’t going to be enough time to get his men back on board, so Jesse deployed Xanu in the Hyperian Shuttle. They had finally integrated the cloak from their destroyed Eagle into the shuttle so once Xanu had them, they could disappear. Collin began evasive maneuvers, and Kimi was ready at weapons. Tanna had the shields and Bessa took sensors. This was going to be a close one. He couldn’t run with his men still out there, but he didn’t know if Endeavor could take this many ships alone.
“Incoming Transmission,” SAMMI announced.
“Onscreen,” Jesse replied. He didn’t want to talk to these pirates, but he knew from experience that they liked to talk, and every second they talked was a second closer to safety Josiah and Reece would be. He only needed to stall for a minute.
Challa’s face lit up the bridge. He was young and short for a Jar-Kargen. His gravelly voice and heavy accent made him difficult to understand. “Endeavor, we have you surrounded. There is no escape. Power down your weapons or we will destroy you.”
“Challa, I was hoping I would never have to meet you. You are trespassing in Kaldorian Space. I’m gonna guess they won’t look too kindly upon that.” SAMMI was alerting the Kaldorians to the situation while Jesse was attempting to stall. “Why don’t you turn around and go back to your fleet while you still can.”
“Your arrogance amazes me, Colonel. We have you surrounded with five ships and yet you still make threats. I now understand why Garrinoras hated you so much.”
Jesse motioned for Kimi to target the closest frigate with both the plasma beams and torpedoes one after another. He looked to Challa and replied. “Garrinoras hated me because he was a sore loser, or just a loser.”
“You shall pay for that, human. Last chance, power down your weapons or face five ships.”
Jesse gave Kimi the signal. The plasma beam quickly burned through the Frigate’s shield and the torpedoes ripped it apart. “You mean four ships,” he mocked as he ended the transmission.
Collin immediately broke into evasive maneuvers while Kimi concentrated fire on the second Frigate. They were unlikely to sit still long enough to be quickly destroyed, but they wouldn’t last long. The Retribution’s main weapons hit Endeavor’s shield’s, followed by SAMMI’s announcement.
“Shields are holding at eighty-nine percent.”
Kimi finished off the second Frigate and turned her attention to the Retribution. Both Gunships began scoring hits on Endeavor as Kimi tried to keep them at bay with the AF lasers. They rocked the Retribution with their next salvo while they were keeping the pirates away from Josiah and Reece. Xanu had them aboard and swooped in to damage one of the Gunships. Another shot rocked Endeavor.
“Shields holding at seventy-one percent.” SAMMI called melodiously into the chaos.
Endeavor’s next torpedo punched through the left side of the Retribution’s shields and damaged the ship’s port side main weapons bank. Endeavor tried to stay on the Retribution’s left while Kimi destroyed the Gunship Xanu had damaged. Endeavor took more fire from the remaining Gunship and the Retribution’s secondary weapons.
“Shields holding at fifty-seven percent,”
Xanu strafed the remaining Gunship, damaging the main weapons. Jesse looked to Collin and asked, “What does Xanu got in that thing?”
Collin just smiled as he juked, causing the Retribution’s next barrage to miss. “We upgraded the weapons with some of Endeavor’s tech.”
Collin flew directly at the port side of the Retribution while Xanu dished out some more punishment on the remaining gunship. Endeavor was hit hard as the Retribution had managed to bring its functioning weapons to bear.
“Shields holding at forty-three percent.”
The remaining Gunship set a collision course with Endeavor as they punched through Retribution’s shields again, destroying the maneuvering thrusts. All Challa could really do now was jump to light space and try to repair his ship. Kimi’s next shot destroyed the damaged gunship as two blasts hit Endeavor.
“Shield’s holding at twenty-six percent.” SAMMI dutifully chimed.
Endeavor hit Retribution’s last remaining weaponry and disabled their sublight engines. Jesse was about to call for their surrender when Challa finally made the jump to light space. He’ll be stinging from this one for a while, Jesse thought with a smile.
Xanu brought the Hyperian shuttle into the landing bay. “That was some fine flying, Xanu. Well done.” Jesse congratulated.
“Thank you, Colonel,” he began. “I think you’ll be pleased to know
Reece and Josiah were successfully able to mine almost six hundred pounds of the mineral. Do you think that will be enough?”
“I believe it will, Xanu, good job guys. Good job all of you. SAMMI, let the Kaldorians know they no longer need to send ships, the pirates are destroyed.”
“Kaldor has been alerted, Colonel.”
“Thank you, SAMMI, now, let’s go relax for a few days.”
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Admiral Collingsworth made it to Polisia with only forty-one of the ninety-four vessels that had attempted to defend Triton. The refugee total had swelled to almost six hundred thousand. The total population of those three planets was seventeen million. Polisia had given Manny command of the fleet, which he would lead from Olympus. Ariel had Vee-Fleet, Captain Snyder had one of the new four ship groups. Jason had another group, and Lieutenant Sanjay Devareaux had the last. Admiral Collingsworth still had his four-ship SSE group intact, which gave them six Leviathans and twenty-two War Hawks. These ships would form the core of their defense. They had a total of one hundred twelve ships along with a planetary shield, a minefield and six anti-ship plasma cannons mounted within a heavily shielded facility on the moon.
