Annihilation: A Rose Grows In Weeds (10 page)

“More than 3 million.”

“Atlas, do we have a chance against these creatures?”

“I don’t know but if you don’t try then they will someday be knocking on your door. You don’t want to have to face multiple galaxies of them. My masters used a virus but it also killed all the life in the galaxy of the creatures and eventually led to their death. They could have defeated them conventionally with their ships but weren’t willing to put forth the effort and time necessary to do it.”

“You sound somewhat bitter, Atlas. Aren’t you saying the same thing to me now? We have to be willing to make the effort.”

“I guess I am. They would still be here if not for their laziness and I would not have been left alone those sixty five million years.”

“Atlas, I’ve never said anything but your master looked very much in shape and form like Humans. Is that just a coincidence?”

“No, my master knew he was dying and that so were all the other Alfont. He seeded your planet with DNA in some of the higher life forms. You and your people are his descendents and I hope you don’t make the same mistake. I believe that most of the intelligent life in your galaxy is a product of my masters DNA seeding.”

Tag thought a moment and said, “Is that why all of our members are oxygen breathers?”

“Probably, my masters were. If you had not asked me about what caused my master’s death, I would have probably not even thought about the Plants. I was just rusty from inactivity. Your new alliance has the opportunity to face these creatures and try to end their savagery. Those poor Pydres huddled on the southern continent don’t stand a chance.”

“Atlas, what Pydres are you talking about.”

“There are about one and a half million of them hiding since the plants invaded. They fled from the cities and went out into the wild lands. I thought you knew about them and that that was why you were coming here.”

“No Atlas, we didn’t know there were any survivors. Will you connect me with Admiral Kosiev?” The display in front of him came on with Kosiev on it.

“Mr. Gardner, can you please explain how you’re able to bypass my communications officer and go straight to my com. He’s understandably a little puzzled by how you do it.”

“I’ll send him a sympathy card but in the mean time I have some information that we need to act on quickly.”

Kosiev raised his eyebrows and said, “Does it relate to our upcoming plans?”

“Yes it does. There are between one and two million Pydres survivors hiding on the southern continent attempting to avoid being eaten.”

Kosiev looked at Tag with an intent gaze and then pushed a privacy screen around his com. “This has something to do with that ship that brought you to us after the remote fleet destruction doesn’t it?”

Tag looked at his long time friend and was uncertain of what to say. “Yes it is Admiral.” Atlas said. “My name is Atlas and I am what you would call an Alfont ship. Tag is unwilling to reveal my existence to anyone because of the tumultuous effect it would have. I am by your standard intelligent but I am a construct. We are currently on the third moon looking down on the Pydres Planet and there is actually about one point three million Pydres’ hiding on the southern continent. A lot of them are not in great shape but they are surviving until the plants turn their attention to that land mass.”

Kosiev sat there stunned and while he was digesting this revelation, Tag said, “Admiral, Atlas will not take part in the war between the SR and the Algeans. He believes that it would be a mistake to introduce his technology to a people not ready to handle it. I happen to agree with him. He would even allow us to be defeated before he intervened. He does allow me to travel with him occasionally and he has insights that have helped me.”

“That’s how you communicate with your wife too,” Kosiev said. “I’ve wondered about that. Mr. Gardner and Atlas, I will not reveal you existence to anyone. I give you my word as an officer of the Stars Realm. What you have done is remove a tremendous amount of suspicion that has plagued me since I’ve seen the unexplainable things you’ve done. I also guess the force field and weapon you used on Ross are by products of this also. I don’t care for an explanation; I’m just glad you’re on our side Atlas and you too Mr. Gardner.”

“Admiral, now that you know, I insist that you call me Tag. You have been not only my confederate but also my friend throughout this changing time. Take your titles and shove them; Call me Tag.”

“It would seem funny if you called me Mr. Atlas, Admiral.”

“Kosiev grinned and said, “Only on private communications. You can call me Alex.”

Tag said, “I never knew your first name, Alex.”

I actually never hear it. I’m unmarried and have no family except for my crew so I never hear my first name. It actually sounds strange to me.”

“Alex, it’s a pleasure meeting you,” Atlas said.

“Likewise, now what do you two think about your discovery.”

Tag looked frustrated then said, “I really don’t know. In an ideal world we would just kick the groad out of the Plants then transport the remaining Pydres to Ross. However, I don’t think we could get the process started before the intense fighting began again with numbers that would overwhelm any unarmed transports.”

“Could we use the Megas to lift them out?” Kosiev asked.

“We don’t have enough to do it. Each one could only handle 1,000 Pydres if they took nothing with them. That would mean we would need 4,200 trips to move them all and what would prevent the Plants from following that many jump lines back to our galaxy. Unfortunately, we can’t wait. The plants have come close to completing their harvest of the northern continent and will be moving on the south quickly.”

“Tag, ask Danielle how to do it,” Atlas said.

“Danielle,” Tag thought.

“Hi, Love.”

“Pick up your com. It’s got a live call on it but Atlas didn’t want to beep it and wake the baby.”

Danielle joined them on the display. “Danielle, we have a real problem on the Pydres planet.” Tag then explained what they had discovered.

“So you don’t know how to get them out if we’re over whelmed; is that the issue.”

Kosiev said, “I guess that cuts to the meat of the problem. Before we knew about them we would just withdraw if the Algeans were getting the better of us. Now if we do we leave those survivors to die.”

Danielle thought for a moment then asked, “What would you do with the Asteroid forts if you withdraw?”

Kosiev gave a start and said, “We would jump them out of the system back to our space.”

Danielle then asked, “Well if you can jump those asteroids out of the system; can’t you land transports on their surface that would be under the forts screens for protection as they leave?”

Tag and Kosiev looked at each other and finally Tag said, “Thank you, Darling; you have helped us a great deal.”

“Don’t mention it, good night.”

Kosiev shook his head and said, “She is amazing. Each fort would have to hold 150,000 to get them all off. Let me see; they are about sixty miles in diameter so they should be able to have that many. We will have to create an environmental screen to hold atmosphere but we should be able to do that under the forts screen. The main problem will be getting that many colonists to the forts from the surface.”

“I think I have an answer for that,” Tag said.

Atlas said, “Well let’s hear it.”

“The Cainth have military transports that can carry 20,000 troops and all their hardware. They are huge and we can bring in eight of them when the marines land and park them on the southern continent. Each of them can hold 60,000 if there’s no military hardware. If things get dicey, then each of them will make two trips to one fort and the population is lifted. Matter of fact, the second lift will just remain on the transport so the environmental field won’t be necessary for them.”

Kosiev said, “Why not just bring in sixteen and lift them in one lift. We might not have time if things go bad quickly. Also, once they jump into the gamma galaxy, the transports and the forts will all jump in different directions to throw off any attempt by the Plants to track their destination.”

Tag said, “Make it happen, Alex. We need to move on this quickly.”

The leaders of the Algeans stood in the rich golden soil on their home world. They had just learned about the strange ships that had appeared at one of the food bearing planets that they were harvesting and destroyed a number of their ships. The oldest leader said, “They actually only destroyed one of our ships. The rest were lost when they shot one of our power missiles and the chain reaction destroyed the other ships.”

“We are also missing one of our explorers. They probably killed that one too,” another leader said.

“How could they have destroyed the explorer before it could have sent a warning about their existence?” one of the younger leaders asked. “One of their ships also took a direct hit by one of the power missiles and survived it. It had also been outrunning it until it suddenly slowed just before impact.”

The group was silent. Finally the Elder said, “I wonder if it deliberately allowed itself to be hit to see if it would survive. I almost believe that they were attempting to determine our weapon capabilities.”

“What do we do about it?”

“We change the way we fire our missiles. No power missile may be closer than 50 geds from each other. We will also launch them from a longer range so that even if they hit them our ships won’t be harmed. We also notify the fifth fleet to be prepared to jump at the first sign of these ships. We need to know who they are and where they are; it could be another valuable food source. Make sure we track their line of departure.” The group buried their feet deeper in the rich soil and absorbed the wonderful nutrients that only existed on their home world.

T
he SR fleet gathered in the gamma galaxy preparing for the coming offensive. Commodore Smith had 10,000 of the old Empire and Ultra ships. Admiral Mikado’s fleet of Megaships had grown to 500. They had just completed the software downloads and Colonel McAllister was running tests on the hornets to make sure they would go to the new protocols when a signal was sent to make the change. “Admiral, our tests have been confirmed and the hornets responded as programmed.”

Mikado looked at the old dreadnaught that had been used as a target and there wasn’t much left to look at. “Commodore Smith, take one of the ultras out to 100 miles and use the new focused primary beam to hit that wreckage, please.”

The Atlanta moved away from the fleet and took position then fired an intense beam at the derelict. The beam struck the wreckage and disintegrated half of the remains.”

“Captain Kelly, move the London out to 300 miles and let’s see if we can hit what remains.”

The Megaship moved out of formation and turned as it fired its new primary from 300 miles away. It only caught half of the remains but nothing was left of what it hit. McAllister said, “Admiral, I can only feel comfortable with targeting at 200 miles. Three hundred is stretching the envelope.”

“Did we hit it?” Mikado asked.

“Not a direct hit but yes you did.”

“Then I won’t hesitate to use it from 300 miles. The ships we’ll be shooting at will be more that twenty miles long in some cases. It’s a much bigger target than what we just hit.”

“You will only have 87% of its energy at that range,” McAllister said.

“Colonel, if a penetrator hits one of those ships and weakens its screen, would the primary penetrate at 87% power,” Mikado asked?

“If it’s a direct hit it wouldn’t need a penetrator to penetrate the screen. The focused primary beam is stronger at 300 miles than the normal primary beam would be at 80 miles.”

“I couldn’t ask for more than that. We are going to initially use it against ships that are hit by only one penetrator as a follow up. I’ve set up our sensors on the Megas to highlight the ships that only have one designated hornet. Our targeting systems will automatically aim a primary at those ships and also change the color in all the other ships targeting to indicate that a Mega has locked on so that we don’t overlap. We will launch our penetrators from 300 miles out once the second Algean fleet moves that far inside the jump limit so we have time to out run the answering Algean missile salvos. We will jump 300 miles behind the Algean fleet that jumps in to support the planetary ships, launch our penetrators, follow up with the new primaries, fire another salvo of penetrators, and then jump in to our fleet at the planet just before the Algean missiles reach our position. I’m hoping the second Algean fleet actually fires two salvos at us before we jump.”

McAllister said, “They shouldn’t know you can jump that far in system so they may even turn to move toward your first position which will delay their arrival to help the fleet they have at the planet.”

“That is exactly what I’m counting on; I plan to move away from them when they launch their first missiles and run to ensure a second salvo. We’ll jump in once the second fleet turns toward us.” Mikado said.