by Jason Bourn
As the plan unfolded, for the first time in many days Nadia felt a ray of hope. She actually smiled.
– – –
Dorial waited for the others to quiet down. This inquisition had taken longer than anticipated, especially with the unexpected resistance from the “Kingdom” worlds. Now that they were in orbit around Torval 2, their long journey looked like it was finally winding to an end.
Dorial thought back to the approach to Torval 2. He had insisted that strict military protocol be followed, with the ships at the ready in full defensive positioning. The only deviation was that the Terran ship, as usual, trailed the other four aligned ships emphasizing the fact that it was there in an observer-role only.
Dorial had been surprised that there had been no ambush as they jumped to Torval 2 space. He had purposefully jumped to a different location than was optimal, hoping to catch the Torvalian ships in an exposed position. Unfortunately, there was no ambush – in fact, there was no evidence of any armed ships. This was a bit disconcerting, since it was estimated that the Torvalians had at least one hundred armed ships, possibly more. Not that their armed ships could do much to stop Dorial’s ships, unless they had built a fleet of real battle ships. But Dorial was not worried overly much since Ramos’ ships were so much more efficient in battle, with the Ramos’ body augmentation melding perfectly with their ship’s equipment, that he was sure even with battle ships the Torvalians would still be no match for Ramos’ ships. That was unless the Torvalians had a large numerical advantage, in which case the outcome of the battle would probably be decidedly in the Torvalian’s favor.
At any rate, that was a possible future that didn’t have anything to do with today. Today the Ramos’ fleet held an overwhelming advantage, so it was up to the Torvalians to do what was asked of them.
Raising his voice, he started the meeting. “As we all know, we were not successful at all on the last world we went to. Their tactic of hiding their children across the entire world was too effective. I asked earlier for each of you to think on how we might defeat this tactic. Does anyone have any ideas?”
Everyone looked around at each other, but no one spoke. Dorial waited, assuming that this would draw out conversation from someone.
Finally, Rheana spoke, “It is a difficult problem for us. They have undoubtedly already moved their children. If they were just now moving them, we could intercept communications or follow their vehicles or use our sensors. But like the last world we went to, they undoubtedly followed their example of what worked by moving the children before we even jumped. They are very clever in that regard. Unfortunately for us, they also do not try things that did not work earlier. So now we are in a bad position, similar to genetic adaptation where all the bacteria that are susceptible to every type of medicine die out and the only bacteria left are those that are immune to every medicine that was used against them. Here we are susceptible to the one tactic that worked for them before. I don’t know how to get around this particular problem of finding hidden children – unless we can convince them to give the children up somehow.”
Markus added quickly, “Maybe if we said pretty please, they will just give their kids to us – what do you think?”
Ignoring him, no one spoke for several seconds.
Finally, Grecian said, “Maybe if we hit them hard, and threaten to do it again, they might see the benefit of only losing a few kids. I wouldn’t mind nuking one of their cities. It would quickly show them that the alternative of losing a few kids wasn’t so bad.”
Again no one said anything. There it was, out in the open. Killing a whole group of innocent people. This wasn’t what they had signed up for. It had started out just to get some children from Earth. Then it had been killing a few enemy combatants that attacked them. But now they were contemplating killing innocent people in the name of saving their society. It was hard for any of them to stomach. Surely there must be a better way.
The silence stretched out until Edgar, the odd man out, finally broke in and voiced what they all were thinking, “Are you really ready to kill innocent people? Has it really come to that?”
Except for the body augmentation sounds, no sound was made. No one could think of anything to say. Even Markus didn’t have any snide remarks to add.
Finally, Dorial said, “The first thing we should do is to threaten to use force. There is a good chance that they will see reason and will acquiesce to our demands and no one will get hurt. If they do not accede to our wishes, we haven’t really committed ourselves – we can still decide what we want to do next.” He knew that this was most likely putting off the inevitable, but there was a chance that it would work.
The others looked around, but no one else spoke. Dorial didn’t like it, but they had just moved one step closer to a previously unthinkable course of action. He sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
– – –
Nadia started the meeting off, with Garth, Kadar, Saul, and of course Giliad present. “OK,” she said, “let’s go over the decree line by line. Then we can discuss how we want to respond. It is short, so I’ll read it then we can discuss it.”
“People of Torval 2,
We need to acquire one hundred children between the ages of four and six Terran years of age, equally split between boys and girls. If you provide these children, we will leave you in peace. If you do not provide these children in two of your Torvalian days, then we will destroy your largest city and then make the same demand again. We are awaiting your response.”
Nadia looked around. Stunned disbelief was still written on each face, but the threat was not to them directly. It was to Torval 2 – her world.
She continued, “Remember, this is the first time that they have actually communicated with us – before they simply took the children. This is probably an acknowledgment that our tactic of hiding the children has been as successful as it was when they used it on Garth’s largest world. We did an excellent job hiding them and I can guarantee that it would take years to find them. Thoughts? Does this change our strategy?” With that she looked directly at Giliad.
He spoke, “No, actually that plays quite nicely into our plans. We just need to make sure we set things up so that the timing works. Since they started the dialog, it is now perfectly natural that we respond. We can tell them that we will provide the children. Tell them they will be transported in four separate unarmed ships, since the children are coming from all areas around the globe. Let them know that our ships will be departing to them in nine hours.”
Nadia looked to Garth, Kadar and Saul. They all looked tentative, but after reviewing the plan, they were satisfied that it was undoubtedly the best that could be done. Each one in turn nodded their heads, as did Nadia.
The response was drafted, reviewed by everyone and approved. It was sent out within minutes. The plan, for better or worse, had been set in motion.
CHAPTER 12 – BATTLE AT TORVAL 2
The one hundred children were collected from the four corners of Torval 2, with roughly a quarter going to each of the four Torvalian ships. The four ships were unarmed cargo ships and each had launched at precise times, according to the plan. This brought the four ships to a pre-planned point in space, in high orbit. This would bring the four Torvalian ships closer and closer to the foreign ships as time went by.
Dorial was prepared for anything. He didn’t know what the Torvalians were up to, but he was sure that they were up to something. Everything had gone so smoothly up until now, but this hadn’t alleviated any of Dorial’s concern.
The four Torvalian ships were floating in space, not making any aggressive moves. The foreign fleet had used its best sensors to determine what was really in the Torvalian ships. And what they found, or rather hadn’t found, was the perplexing part. They had found no weapons, no rigged explosives or nuclear weapons, nothing but four ships full of children as the Torvalians had promised.
Dorial called the meeting to discuss just this. What should they do? They
couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Just four unarmed ships.
Dorial said, “Well, we’ve used our best equipment and we can’t find any hint of sabotage. What are we missing?”
Rheana said, “We haven’t uncovered any reason to doubt that they have done what we requested. Perhaps Edgar’s sensors, which are more advanced than ours, can detect something.”
Edgar’s image didn’t waver a bit, “I can sense nothing besides a group of four space ships with no offensive weaponry, each housing a large number of small children.”
Markus said, “Maybe they are just giving us their kids, just like we asked. I’m sure they have no plan except to give us the kids. Let’s just go over there, take them and go on our jolly way. What could possibly go wrong?”
No one minded Markus’ tone, but they did have to consider what to do next. And going over there was certainly one of the options.
Grecian said, “I don’t like this. I want a target that I can shoot at.” There were murmurs of agreement, but none of that was helpful.
Dorial finally said, “We aren’t making any progress here. I propose that we send the automatons over to verify that the ships are indeed as they seem. Thoughts?”
Rheana said, “I recommend that after we verify there is no weaponry aboard, we permanently disable the ships’ propulsion and guidance systems so that the ships cannot possibly be used against us.”
Dorial said, “Good idea. OK, if there are no objections, then we will send over the automatons.” When no one objected, they ended the meeting and prepared to send over the automatons before the Torvalian ships could get anywhere near the foreigner's ships.
– – –
One automaton was sent to each of the children’s ships. Each Ramos inhabitant controlled one automaton, looking carefully for anything out of the ordinary. Each automaton’s full sensor suite was tuned to detect anything that could even remotely be used as a weapon. They searched every possible location on each of the ships, but were unable to find anything. When they gave up their search, they permanently disabled all the propulsion and navigation systems so the ships themselves could not be used in any offensive manner. Then they departed from the ships and returned to the foreign fleet.
Dorial was still very suspicious, but there was nothing more that they could do. They had checked, double checked and triple checked the Torvalian ships. They were as sure as they could be that they posed no threat.
Finally, Grecian said, “I am going to go over and start collecting children and put them on my ship. This should take no more than two hours.”
No one had any better ideas, and placing one ship in danger was better than placing all the ships in danger.
Grecian slowly maneuvered his ship towards the closest of the four Torvalian ships. He had full sensor sweeps running at maximum rate, probing every part of the ship as well as the other three ships. When no sign of danger presented itself, Grecian made the final approach to lock on to the cargo ship and mesh their airlocks. This provided a corridor in which to bring the children across to his ship.
Suddenly all the sensors on all the foreign fleet’s ships went off simultaneously. Hundreds of ships were seen simultaneously lifting off from behind the nearest of the three moons, heading directly towards the foreign fleet.
Shaking his head, Dorial felt sure that the Torvalians had made finally made a monumental mistake. Now they would be easy pickings for all manner of weapons, although in the back of his mind he knew that something was wrong in that they chose this moment when the two ships had made contact to initiate their liftoffs.
As the foreign ships attempted to lock on to the Torvalian ships, they found that there were five ships in the way, Grecian's as well as the four children’s ships. This meant that this limited the use of most of their weapons, since they couldn’t destroy either Grecian’s or the children’s ships.
Looking closely, there were more than two hundred unarmed ships that led the attack, with fifty or more armed ships directly behind them. The unarmed ships were not a threat as long as they remained far enough away, but they were using Grecian’s and the children’s ships as shields. In turn, the armed ships were using Grecian’s ship, the children’s ships and the unarmed ships as shields.
Dorial yelled, “Why didn’t we detect their ships on the moon?”
Rheana yelled back, “They were very well camouflaged and totally powered down, so we couldn’t detect them. They did a great job. If we had made a very detailed sensor sweep, we may have been able to detect them, but we were focusing on their prime world, not their moons.”
Dorial ordered the long-range nuclear weapons to be used, set to maneuver around Grecian’s and the unarmed ships. After the first volley was sent off, the results came back as all having failed to hit the armed ships as intended. Looking at the data, he could see the unarmed ships had simply maneuvered to intersect the nuclear weapons. This caused minor damage to several of the unarmed ships, but the damage was so insignificant relative to the loss of so many nuclear weapons. Dorial ordered another volley of nuclear weapons, but that only resulted in the loss of more of these valuable weapons, with none hitting the armed ships. With that Dorial stopped the use of the nuclear weapons.
Next Dorial ordered the electromagnetically launched projectiles to be used. These had much more speed, but didn’t have nearly the directional control. Again, there were plenty of unarmed ships to provide interference against these weapons. As more unarmed ships broke apart, it was getting more and more difficult to get an unobstructed shot at the armed ships.
The laser weapons were not of any use, again because of the tri-level of ship shields.
And still the attack fleet kept getting closer. They were not yet in any real danger from the unarmed ships, but if they continued to close in on their positions, there was the real possibility of sustaining major damage if these unarmed ships, or large parts thereof, actually ran into the foreigner’s ships. And, of course, right behind the numerous unarmed ships were the armed ships, which could indeed inflict serious damage if a weapon was able to hit a ship.
Frustrated, Dorial asked for options.
Rheana said, “We can stay where we are, withdraw or we can abandon our defensive position and become more offensive. The latter option will open us up for possible damage since we are outnumbered by armed ships more than ten to one. Also, withdrawing now means the loss of all the children that are on the ships.”
Grecian responded, “I haven’t had a chance to get any of the children. Do you want me to abandon this effort, or should I get the children first?”
Rheana said, “We have plenty of time to get one ship’s worth of children and probably two ship’s worth. Two ships worth will provide the minimum number that we need for our society to go forward. The other two ships’ worth of children was always more than needed, in case anything went wrong. Also, we are not in any imminent danger, since the children’s ships and the unarmed ships act as a shield for us as well as them – so in this case it helps us. If they try moving the unarmed ships, we can always use that as a pathway to hit their armed ships.”
Dorial said, “If we are in no danger, then let’s get the minimum number of children, two ship’s worth. Then we will immediately leave and return to Ramos. We just need to get three days away from the planet and then we can jump. Since they don’t have the technology to jump, we will then be home free. Does anyone have any other suggestions?”
The entire group was silent, so Grecian started moving the children from the first ship to his own ship.
Meanwhile the unarmed ships continued their approach, slowly becoming more and more of a threat.
Grecian was able to get the last of the children into suspended animation chambers on his ship. “All done with the first ship. I am going to go to the next closest ship, unless there are any objections.”
Rheana said, “We still have sufficient margin from the unarmed ships. Also, the armed ships are still using the shields so we
can’t get to them and they can’t get to us.”
Dorial said, “OK Grecian, let us know your progress. I want to be out of here as soon as you are done.”
Grecian broke the lock on the first ship, which was now empty, devoid of children. He slowly maneuvered his ship to the second ship. Again, he locked the two ships together and meshed the airlocks between the two ships.
Suddenly, a familiar set of alarms went off on all the foreigner’s ships. There was another set of Torvalian ships that had taken off from the smallest of the Torvalian moons. Again, more than two hundred unarmed ships lifted off, with over fifty armed ships following. Worse, the moon was at the exact opposite side from the first Torvalian attack fleet. The foreigner’s ships were being squeezed from both sides.
Dorial knew immediately that they were in trouble. They had plenty of firepower, but they couldn’t use it with all the unarmed ships both in front of them and behind them. Also, simply waiting in place was not an option, since the unarmed ships were closing at a high rate of speed. A collision with one of these ships, though unarmed, would ensure a high amount of damage.
Dorial shouted, “Grecian, get those children on your ship. That is the reason we are here. The rest of us will try to protect you. I severely doubt that any of the ships will attempt to destroy your ship with the children on board.”
With their retreat cut off, Dorial quickly shouted, “I need options and quick.”
Edgar said, “I am sorry, but it is now time for me to leave. I have observed all that I need to. I wish you well. Good bye and good luck.”
Dorial watched as the Terran ship moved perpendicular to the two approaching attack fleets, and accelerated. Dorial’s eyebrows went up as the Terran ship moved faster and faster. Soon it was moving at a rate much faster than either the Torvalians’ or Ramos’ ships were capable of. With the Terran ship moving that fast, it was obvious that it would escape unscathed.
