by Robert Boren
“Holding, using less than twenty percent,” Nolan said. “They pack a lot bigger punch than the Centurion ships, but not enough.”
“Move us, then hit them with more plasma blasts,” I said. “Make them work at getting a bead on us.”
“Making the first jump,” Cyrus said. “Five Centurion ships destroyed, over the far east.”
“Same here, Captain,” Andrea said. “Three Centurion ships destroyed over Russia, along with two troop ships who were too close.”
“Good,” I said. “Are we in position for another salvo, Nolan?”
“Yes sir.”
“Fire!” Our plasma weapons lit them up again, the shields on the rear of the enemy ship turning red, the ship itself starting to glow.
“We broke through!” Nolan shouted.
“They’ll jump away any second,” Skip said, the ship vanishing as the words left his lips.
“Target any Centurion ships in range,” I said.
“Locked in now,” Skip said, talking into his PA, two Centurion ships disintegrating in an instant.
Nolan smiled. “The Tristar and Zephyrus just destroyed their next round of ships, Captain, and the balance of Centurion ships have jumped away, along with the remaining troop transports.”
“You got a trace on them?” I asked.
“The Centurions, yes. Can’t connect with that big ship.”
“They’ve got a more advanced drive system,” Vermillion said. “We need to find out who built that craft.”
“How did our shields hold up?” I asked.
“We were never down more than twenty percent, sir,” Nolan said, “and as they were hitting us, these shields got stronger, not weaker. Very good design.”
“Sir, no enemy ships remain in the area,” Sondra said. “What now?”
“Remain here and watch the traces.”
“Good call,” Vermillion said. “Watch for that big ship. It might be back.”
Nolan looked over at me. “We’ve got a problem, Captain.”
“What?”
“I’m getting reports of PA stun attacks in all the cities covered by an Overlords ship.”
“Dammit,” I said. “Is there a way we can stop it?”
“Wait,” Vermillion said. “I’ll get the satellites shut down. That will cut off the signal to PA units on the surface.” He spoke into his PA. Then Nolan cracked up.
“You think this is funny?” JJ asked, a look of horror on her face.
“The attack is only killing about two percent of the people targeted.”
“How are you picking that up?” I asked.
“The PA system data shows that only two percent of the connections when through. Reports from the Earth media and message boards are on fire with this too. After that first attack in Manhattan, most people on Earth removed their PA units. Small wonder. Wouldn’t you?”
“Hamilton Zenos suggested that, remember?” JJ asked. “Maybe he has a bigger following than we thought.”
I shook my head. “I’d laugh, but people got killed. Got any idea how many yet?”
“No,” Nolan said. “I’m sure the info will be out shortly.”
“The PA feeds have been shut down,” Vermillion said. “They can’t hit Earth again.”
“They can reset their satellites, can’t they?” Sondra asked.
“It wasn’t done at the satellites,” Vermillion said. “Power was cut off at the ground stations.”
Nolan chuckled. “Good call. They can’t fix that without going to the surface.”
“It’s good for this emergency, but there are other things those ground stations control,” I said. “They’ll have to turn them back on eventually.”
“My software can be adapted to use on the ground stations,” Nolan said. “It’ll stop the PA service without stopping everything else. I can probably even leave the PA service active but block the stun and surveillance capability.”
“When we get past this, I’d like you to work on that,” Vermillion said.
“Sir, incoming!” Skip shouted.
“What?” I asked. “Enemy ships?”
“More like a rail gun attack,” Nolan said. “Scanning the projectiles now. They’re still pretty far off.”
“I’ve told the battle pilots to target the projectiles,” Skip said.
Nolan shook his head no. “We need to get out of here, Captain.”
“We can’t blast them?” I asked.
“Yeah, we can blast them, but they’re very large depleted uranium rounds. Several metric tons each. We’d have to use kinetic weapons. There are too many of them to use missiles. We’ve got fifty-thousand coming at us.”
My brow furrowed. “That means we’d have to lower our shields, and then guess what will happen.”
“Exactly,” Nolan said. “Most of them will miss us. They’ve flooded the area with them, since we’re cloaked. None of them are targeted precisely. Simone’s using them like a giant shotgun shell.”
“Our shields won’t stop them?” JJ asked.
“Not with that mass,” Nolan said. “They might only be half the size by the time they hit our hull—but do we really want one ton projectiles hitting us?”
“Jump away,” I said. “Sondra, have the other two ships do the same just in case.”
“Aye, sir,” Sondra said, speaking into her PA as the dizzy feeling hit us.
We stopped at the far end of the solar system again and watched as the projectiles flew past our previous position, some hitting the earth’s atmosphere, glowing white hot.
“Some of those will do damage on the surface,” Sondra said.
“Most of them are falling into the Pacific,” Nolan said, looking over from his console. “Luckily they didn’t bother sending a group of them at the positions of the Zephyrus and Tristar. They only targeted the New Jersey.”
“Maybe we should call it a day and go back to Amberis,” Sondra said.
“Wait, let’s look at those traces,” I said, glancing at Nolan.
“Still traveling,” Nolan said.
“What direction?”
“Several,” Nolan said. “A couple are headed for Devonia Axxiom. Some to Temporal Eralla One, others to Axirilo. The troop transports all went to the same place.”
“Where?” JJ asked.
“Oollanders,” Nolan said.
“That’s a level five,” Sondra said. “They must be thrilled.”
“The infantry probably came from there,” Vermillion said. “The Central Authority recruits most of their infantry from level five worlds.”
“Price of admission,” Skip quipped.
“Yes,” Nolan said. “Maybe we ought to load our two smaller siblings and get out of here.”
“We don’t want to hit them for the PA system attack?” Skip asked.
I shook my head no. “Each of the Centurion ships we destroyed had around a hundred thousand people on them. If we find out the stun attack killed anywhere near that number of people, I could see a counter attack, but I’d be surprised if they killed that many.”
“The estimates are already coming out,” Nolan said, not looking away from his console. “Looks like well under ten thousand people.”
“Okay, let’s get the other ships loaded, then,” I said.
“Maybe we should jump out a little further,” JJ said. “They’ll get a glimpse of us when we open the bay door.”
“That’ll cost us more fuel,” Skip said.
Sondra nodded in agreement. “And they won’t get much of a glimpse, unless their sensors are a lot better than ours.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Nolan said. “We’re cloaked. We’ll let some signal out opening the bay door. That’ll cause a very noticeable ripple, and it’s all about the contrast. Even a Centurion ship would see it. They could be here in about thirty seconds.”
I sat thinking about it. “How far would we have to go to protect against them jumping in before we can get finished loading them?”
“Worki
ng out that calculation,” Nolan said. “Ah, it’s done. The Fomalhaut system.”
“That’s twenty-five light years,” Skip said. “It’s a significant amount of fuel. You really think they’ll try anything?”
“Yes,” I said. “Send the word to the other ships, and let’s go now.”
“Aye, Captain,” Skip said. We jumped away.
“How much time will it take us to load the two ships?” I asked.
“Ten minutes,” Sondra said.
“And how long is the travel time?” JJ asked.
“Just under twenty minutes, so we have a slight buffer,” Nolan said.
I smiled. “Good, thanks, Nolan.”
The trip took slightly less time than Nolan said, and we loaded the two ships very quickly, jumping towards Amberis within fifteen minutes.
“We’ve got a couple problems to deal with,” Vermillion said. “Let’s go into the conference room and hash it out.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Nolan, JJ, Sondra, you, and me, for now,” he said. “Nolan, set the scan to running if you haven’t already. Don’t want anybody sneaking up on us.”
“Already done, Mr. Chairman.”
We got up and followed Vermillion into the conference room, finding seats quickly.
“First of all, great work,” Vermillion said. “Expertly planned and executed.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, the others nodding.
“We’re in some trouble,” Nolan said.
“Yes,” Vermillion replied.
“Why?” JJ asked. “We more than handled that big ship.”
“That ship was able to take our shields down by twenty percent,” Nolan said. “If they had five ships of those monsters all firing at us at the same time, they’d have beaten us.”
“Exactly,” Vermillion said.
“Well, yes and no,” I said. “Remember one thing. We just about burned through their shields with the third sustained plasma blast, and we were using only about twelve percent of our available power. Most of our plasma guns sat idle during that exchange. The loss of shields isn’t linear, either. It might take ten of those ships to kill us, and they’d have to survive our plasma bursts to do it.”
Nolan chuckled. “You were in a pretty big hurry to leave the area.”
“Am I wrong?”
Nolan sighed. “No, not really. This is a very tough ship, but it’s not invincible against that new model that Simone has cooked up.”
“Yes, and we only have one of these ships,” Vermillion said. “They destroy this ship, and we’re done. That’s why it’s so crucial to build more.”
“Okay, I’ll give you guys that,” I said. “Maybe we need to find out where they’re building their spacecraft.”
“We’ve only got three ships,” Vermillion said. “That’s gonna be a very difficult search to do.”
“How long would it take to get production on the smaller ships completed?” Nolan asked. “I remember you saying it was about six months for the New Jersey class. How about the Zephyrus?”
“Good question,” Vermillion said. “We could turn one of those smaller ships out in less than a month. I’ll put a priority on that model.”
“How about the Tristar model?” JJ asked.
“They take more time and have less cargo capacity,” Vermillion said. “We’ll build more of those because of their speed advantage, but right now the Zephyrus class ships make more sense. I don’t want to slow down the New Jersey class production, though, so I’ll have to do some careful planning when I get to the central plant.”
“Don’t we also have the rail-gun attack to worry about?” Sondra asked.
Nolan chuckled. “That was a Hail Mary.”
“But how do we protect against that?” Sondra asked.
“We had the tools to neutralize that attack on board this ship,” I said. “We just didn’t have time to deploy them. Next time we will.”
“Oh, you’re talking about those rail-gun drones,” Sondra said. “We just put them beyond our shields. Sorry, forgot about those. I’ve never had to deal with them.”
“Are they up to the task?” JJ asked. “The Overlord’s projectiles were much larger than normal.”
“Our rail guns would’ve broken those projectiles into much smaller pieces,” Nolan said. “Small enough that our shields would burn them up before they hit the hull. There is a limit to how much depleted uranium is available, too. It’s not a good long-term strategy for the Overlords to use.”
“Because of the ban on nuclear fission reactors?” Sondra asked.
“Exactly,” Nolan said. “That material shot at us today was probably hundreds of years old.”
“You guys are forgetting something,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Fission is not illegal on level six worlds. Hell, they don’t even know the Central Authority exists yet. Lots of fission on level six worlds, and there’s probably over a thousand in our corner of the Central Authority Zone.”
{ 23 }
Triple Team
W e were still in the conference room with Vermillion, discussing the battle. Nolan was thinking about nuclear fission and level five worlds, which I had just brought up.
“You’ve got something there,” Nolan said. “Technically it would be illegal to gather that material up from level six worlds. It would also be next to impossible to pull off, given the far more advanced technology of those worlds.”
JJ thought for a moment. “Given the fact that the Overlords have these new ships, it’s possible that they have other technology we don’t know about… such as cloaking technology.”
“If they had that, they’d use it on that new ship,” Vermillion said. “They didn’t know we had it until our attack on the Mars space dock.”
“They knew we were working on it, though,” JJ said.
Vermillion nodded. “True.”
“They might be doing the same thing we are,” I said.
“Meaning what?” Vermillion asked.
“They could set up uranium enrichment plants on a higher-level world, like we’re doing for our fuel supply on Amberis. It would actually be easier than what we’re doing.”
“Use of that tactic is still a Hail Mary,” Nolan said, “for which we have a defense if we choose to deploy it. I think we ought to concentrate on the big ship itself. Who’s building it and where, what are its complete capabilities, where the supply lines are for materials, that sort of thing.”
“Yes, we need the same kind of info that they’re trying desperately to find out about our operation,” Vermillion said.
I sat with my brow furrowed, that horrible feeling that we’re forgetting something pushing its way into my mind. JJ noticed.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Something more is going on. We got lured to Earth by Simone. Maybe she thought we’d be defeated by this new ship of hers, but she had to know we’d destroy all of her Centurion ships.”
“I know, that’s bothering me too,” Vermillion said. “She’s one of the brightest people I’ve ever met. This battle looks like something a one-dimensional thinker would come up with.”
Nolan chuckled. “It was probably developed in a committee. You guys have dealt with the Central Authority before.”
“I’m not convinced the Central Authority is supporting her,” Vermillion said. “I’m afraid the Central Authority let wolves into their midst, and don’t have the ability to control them.”
JJ nodded. “Well, either the Central Authority has turned, or the Overlords are doing things behind their back.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because the SDAC must, by law, review all new spacecraft designs. I sat on that committee, remember? I would’ve remembered this ship.”
“We need to change course,” I said. “I don’t want us anywhere near Amberis.”
Nolan eyed me. “You think they can track us through a worm hole.”
“Remember when
you said it was hard to hide an artificial worm hole from a detailed scan?”
“Yes, theoretically that is correct,” Nolan said.
“She got a starting point near Earth, and another one where we just left from, in the outer solar system.”
Nolan’s brow furrowed, his expression turning to alarm. “He’s right, we need to change course before we get close to Amberis.”
“Sondra, give the order,” I said. “Send us out into the middle of nowhere. Don’t care what the location is at the moment. Let’s go another thirty light years.”
“I’ll be right back, Captain.” She got up and rushed onto the bridge.
“We can’t just travel and stay where the wormhole drops us,” Nolan said. “I suggest we come out of it and move away as fast as our impulse engines will carry us. Cloaked, of course.”
“Yes, and then we deploy the railgun drones,” I said.
“Dammit,” Vermillion said. “They’re forcing us to burn too much fuel.”
“Might be their plan, depending on how much they know,” Nolan said. “They captured a lot of Samson Corporation employees. How many knew about this ship’s new shields and weapons, and the fuel requirements?”
“Several,” Vermillion said, leaning back in his chair. “If we use those drones, we need to keep them inside the shields unless we’re attacked with those projectiles again.”
“Agreed,” I said. “We’d better get out there and talk to the bridge crew about this. We’ve got a lot to do in a small amount of time.”
“Let’s go,” Vermillion said. We all walked onto the bridge.
“We’ve changed course,” Sondra told us as we sat down. I told the bridge crew about our strategy.
“Should we let the Zephyrus and Tristar back out?” Skip asked.
“They might see it,” Sondra said.
Skip shook his head. “They might, but if we get into a fight it’d be better to have them out.”
“Let’s stop, let them out now, and then we’ll all head towards the same spot,” Nolan said. “We’re too far away to get caught while we’re in the middle of getting them out.”
“If they saw us stop and take them back into the bay, they might have a head-start in this direction,” I said.
“Even if they do, they’re still too far back,” Nolan said. “I say we launch them right now. As quickly as we can.”
