Annihilation: A Rose Grows In Weeds (36 page)

Dorg looked at the Kosiev out of his viewport and though he had seen it before, he was still impressed. “Yes, we are ready. Please notice that we have mounted mobile launchers on all of the ships so that they can carry double the normal capacity of the new penetrators. Depending on the number of ships they send, we should be ready to destroy the bulk of their fleet.”

Dorg then noticed that Rose was sitting next to Tag and he stood up from his chair, “What is she doing here? This is not a place the Princess should be; what are you thinking?”

Rose pressed her com and joined Dorg and Tag in the conversation, “Oh Uncle, Dorg, you always worry too much. Besides, I have to be here.”

“By the love of the creator, why?”

Rose looked at the Cainth Warrior and said in a soft voice, “I can’t tell you but you’ll understand later; until then, you’re going to have to trust me.”

Dorg glared at Tag and held his opinion. Tag said, “Admiral, I want you to think this thru carefully. She said she has to be here; are you willing to run the risk of her not being allowed to come?”

Dorg furrowed his brow and looked out of his viewport for a moment and then said, “If things go bad, you will jump her out of here to safety, won’t you?”

Tag smiled and said, “I suspect that being close to her is the safest place to be in the upcoming conflict. However, I will have to account for her safety to our Queen and I’m not prepared to endure that if she’s harmed.”

Dorg smiled and said, “Better you than me, I’ve seen her angry. Are you changing the plan?”

“No, I do want to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Would you please get Mikado, Ron-Dar, and the fort commander to join us on this channel?”

“Dorg looked over at his communications officer and said, “Standby for just a moment.”

Tag and Rose sat in their chairs tapping their feet while listening to the Matt McCagg Experience sing “Don’t Play With the Spaceship,” while they waited for the others to join the meeting.”

“I believe that everyone is on the channel with us, Your Majesty.”

Tag shook his head; he just could not get used to being treated as royalty. “Good day and welcome everyone. I want to make sure that we are all in complete understanding of the plan for the upcoming battle. We are going to wait here at the planet for the Algean fleet to come in system more than five hours before we start our response.”

“Why are we waiting so long?” Mikado asked.

“It is the opinion of our strategist that it will take that long for their entire fleet to get in system from the jump point. If we start our attack too early then a huge portion of their fleet could escape.”

The group was silent for a long moment and then Ron-Dar asked, “How many ships do they anticipate the Algeans will send against us?”

Tag took a deep breath and said, “Between five and six million.”

Dorg shook his head slowly and said, “I’m even more uncomfortable now with waiting five hours.”

Rose said, “Uncle, for every hour you reduce from five hours, two million of their ships will be able to escape.”

Tag looked at his daughter with surprise. How did she know that?

“It might also interest you to know that they are not sending eight million ships,” Rose said as a matter of fact.

Dorg said, “Good, I was worried about handling that many.”

“They’re sending a little over eleven million with more than six million of those ships redesigned to suicide with anti-matter warheads,” Rose continued. “The suicide ships also have the five screens protecting them.”

The SR Fleet Commanders looked at her with shock on their faces.

Tag looked at his daughter and said, “Did you know this before I agreed to bring you into this battle?”

Rose looked at her father and said, “Yes, and there’s much more that I can’t tell you yet.”

Tag stood there in turmoil. This was going to be very dangerous space and he was scared for his daughter’s safety. Rose looked at him and said, “You need not worry about my safety; I just need you to do what I ask you to do at the precise time I need it without questioning my decisions. Will you do that for me?”

Tag looked at Rose and nodded begrudgingly.

“Dad, I’m extremely serious. You’ll want to think it thru but I need you to respond immediately. Promise me you will or the danger to all of us will be unimaginable.”

All of the SR Fleet Commanders were listening to the dialogue and they could see the struggle taking place with Tag, then they saw him nod and say, “I trust you with all of our lives, Rose. It will be done as you say. I wish you would tell me what I’m agreeing to do.”

Rose smiled and said, “I can’t because then you wouldn’t do it.” Then she looked at Bridget and said, “The first thing I need you to do is to move the forts self destruct module from our ship to Admiral Mikado’s and I need it done immediately.”

Tag started to protest but then caught himself and said, “Do as she says, Commodore. She is in control now and believe me, I almost said no to her first request and my inner senses warned me that I would be making a mistake.” Tag then looked at Admiral Mikado and said, “The forts self-destruct module is being moved to your ship. You will be in control of the timing of their runs.”

Dorg looked at the two Gardeners and felt real fear. He knew the power of Tag’s talents having seen them over the years. Then he remembered that Tgon-Gee had told him more than twelve years earlier at Rose’s birth that her powers would make her parents look small in comparison. The thing that made him draw some comfort from the present situation was that Rose was not showing any doubt what so ever and knew what she wanted. Then he chuckled to himself and thought, “I guess trying to explain it to us mere mortals would just take too long.” He then saw the shuttle leaving the Kosiev with the destruct module for installation on the Rising Sun. I wonder how much longer we have before the Plants arrival.”

T
ag sat on the bridge with Rose waiting for what they knew was coming. They were talking with their thoughts and Tag was hurt that his daughter didn’t trust him enough to tell him what was going on. “Dad, It’s not an issue of trust and you’ll understand that when everything happens. However, I know that you can’t see that right now. Just keep your promise and follow my instructions.”

Danielle was also listening to the conversation and she said, “You can’t tell me either, can you?”

“No, Mom, I can’t and I’m going to ask you not to try and figure out why. I know your talent at digging out the truth but this is one time I’m going to ask you as a lifetime wish to forego using your talent until this battle is over.”

Danielle was almost dying to work it out but she forced herself to not think about why, “yet.”

Rose looked at Tag and said, “It’s time; they’ll start arriving here in less than a minute.”

O’Donald was listening in and nodded to her communications officer. She sent the message out to the fleet and she turned on her general ships frequency. “Battle stations, all hands to battle stations. Secure the ship and report in on status.”

Bridget watched her communication officer’s console and saw all ninety lights go red indicating her ship was ready to fight in less than thirty seconds. She had heard Mikado say that when he served on the Moscow that they could do it in forty five seconds. “We beat them,” Bridget thought. (Later Mikado would tell her that the Moscow did it when the crew was asleep and was not expecting anything to happen.)

Everything looked normal at the jump limit; then suddenly more than 20 thousand ships emerged from star drive and began accelerating toward the planet. Less than thirty seconds after the first line of ships began moving in system, 20 thousand more ships appeared and began accelerating. Every thirty seconds after that a new line of twenty thousand ships would jump in. The SR Fleet watched the ships coming at them and Mikado noticed a pattern. He commed the other commanders and said, “Have any of you noticed a pattern in the Algeans formation?”

Tag said, “Yes, I have; all of the ships in the initial wave are the heavy harvesters and they are allowing the ships behind them to catch up to form what looks like a cylinder.”

Mikado raised his eyebrows and said, “Right on, Your Majesty. What do you think they’re doing?”

Tag thought a moment and then said, “I hope I’m wrong but it appears to me that the heavy harvesters will form a shell around their suicide ships and do the blocking of our weapons until they get in range.”

Ron-Dar looked at his display saying, “Do you think that will work?”

Tag thought and then said, “What will happen to a harvester when one of our new penetrators hit it?”

“It should destroy it when it sets off their magazines,” Dorg said.

“What if they aren’t carrying missiles and the only weapon they use is a beam.”

“Then a five mile wide hole will be blown in them,” Mikado said.

“And what will happen to the remaining fifteen miles of ship?” Tag asked.

Then they all saw it. Ron-Dar said, “The remainder will continue moving toward the planet because of its inertia which will still give the smaller ships a huge moving screen to hide behind.”

Tag pressed his com and got Cade on the channel and explained what he believed was happening. “Are our penetrators programmed to handle this situation?”

Cade looked worried. “No, we aren’t. The penetrators are programmed to ignore ships designated by another penetrator. The harvesters will only be hit by one penetrator at a time. Since the ships that have been hit will probably not be under power, our penetrators will probably ignore the damaged ships.”

Tag said, “Begin reprogramming as many of them as you can. Notify me when you’ve made progress.” Tag then looked at the commanders and said, “Change of plans, our fleet will use their penetrators to target the damaged ships. To totally destroy a harvester may take four penetrators to destroy its twenty mile length, however, I want you to assign a section of the incoming plant formation to your ships and hit them as them approach. We will move the fleet to within twelve hundred miles of the five hour mark and begin firing as we retreat toward the forts matching the Plants speed. We cannot allow them closer than the penetrators range. Cade, as soon as the Plants hit the five hour mark in system; start volleying the jump penetrators; we will hit anything that comes thru the volleys; any questions?”

No one said anything, so Tag ordered, “Move the fleet forward now.” The 83,000 ships of the SR Fleet moved to 1,200 miles from the five hour mark and watched for more than four hours as the Plant fleet entered the system. The Plant formation was more than thirty million miles long and was picking up speed as it moved toward the planet. The SR ships watched amazed at the huge numbers moving toward them. Now the only thing separating the two enemies was a short period of time.

The Fleet Leader watched as the Stranger’s ships left the planet and moved out toward his fleet. “I knew they weren’t stupid,” he thought. “They have figured out that the heavy ships will be used as a shield and are moving to counter them.” His fleet had been jumping in system for more than four hours and finally, all of his fleet was moving toward the planet. They were limited to the speed of the heavy ships but that was a risk that he had to run to protect the new screened missiles. He keyed his fleet frequency and said, “Form the attack formation and begin full acceleration.” The Algean fleet picked up speed and formed a huge cylinder four hundred miles wide with the harvesters composing s hundred outer layers. The plant fleet moved inexorably toward the planet.

Five hours into the system the heavy ships in front of the plant formation were suddenly being hit by jump penetrators coming out of star drive. The Algean fleet leader was amazed at the new weapon. “How can they jump a missile with a screen so close to the sun?” He also received notice that every frequency ship had been destroyed. He moved more in but as soon as they crossed the jump limit they were hit and totally destroyed. He watched his display as thousands of the missiles began hitting his ships but the damaged ships continued moving toward the planet as other ships dropped in behind them. The cost was going to be heavy but his fleet was still moving forward.

The SR Fleet was firing penetrators at the huge ships that were damaged that continued to come at them. The entire front of the Algean fleet looked like a giant wall of fire that huge pieces of wreckage would come out of and continue toward the planet. As the damaged ships moved forward the jump penetrator’s arrival points had to be moved backward because they would not come out of null space close to another object. The Algean Fleet moved slowly but surely toward the planet. The SR Fleet backed away from the Algean formation firing at the huge ships that came thru the wall of fire. Dorg commed Tag and said, “We’re not killing them fast enough. There’s only an hour and a half left before they reach the planet and we run out of space to jump the penetrators in.”

Tag looked at the display and said, “We need to give ourselves some room to operate. Jump one of the forts into the front of their formation now.”