Annihilation: The Power of a Queen (22 page)

“At the rate they’re moving, we probably have a couple of days before they reach moon orbit. Why don’t you get some rest,” Taz said.

“I think I will. Thanks, call me if anything changes.”

“Count on it. I’m taking a shift off but Captain Glenn will keep us informed.”

Admiral Dorg and Tgon-Gee were watching the feed from Earth as the Alliance fleet moved toward the Human’s home world. Dorg said over his com, “That fleet is the largest I’ve ever heard of and it looks like they aren’t taking any chances.”

“You’re right. Do you think our Human brothers can handle that fleet?”

“I don’t know. If they can lure them in close to the planet, those asteroids pack quite a punch. It just depends on how the fleet commander decides to play it out. If they won’t come closer, it will be a space battle. I understand that the Humans have more than 7,000 ships which give the Alliance less than three to one odds. That is the best the Humans have faced so far. If they can destroy most of those ships, then the Alliance will be in real jeopardy.”

“If that many ships are lost by the Alliance, I know at least five hundred members that would take advantage of the moment and attack other members. Have you been directed to stay out of this battle?”

Dorg thought for a moment and said, “No, we just haven’t been invited and I sure would like to see how our new ships perform in combat. Why, are you planning to crash the party?”

Tgon-Gee chuckled and said, “Those Humans have some very descriptive sayings. I’ve thought about it but like you said, we don’t have an invitation. That’s odd, what’s the Alliance fleet doing?”

Dorg looked at his feed and said, “I don’t know. I wonder what they’re up to now.”

After two days of scanning the solar system the Alliance fleet had finally reached the orbit of Earth’s moon. The planet was totally surrounded by the Alliance fleet and then suddenly, half the fleet turned and accelerated away from the planet toward the Star drive limit. The Vgrig Warleader issued his instructions over the main Alliance frequency. “Half the fleet will now go to the Star drive limit to make sure no ships from outside the system jumps in to trap us. Start the Dreadnaughts draining of the screen and no ships get closer than 50,000 trigs. Keep me informed of your progress.” One hundred dreadnaughts moved in position to start draining each of the eight asteroids circling the planet. They established their orbit to stay even with the Asteroid they were assigned to drain. The Lead dreadnaught commander Brantu ordered his ships to start draining the Human’s screen. Eight hundred beams shot out simultaneously and struck the eight asteroids.

Tag and Taz had watched the Alliance fleet advance closer and closer over the two day period and waited for them to arrive at earth orbit. When they finally did and half the Alliance fleet turned and ran to the star drive limit it genuinely surprised both of them. “Well, that’s something I hadn’t planned on,” Tag said. “It seems our Alliance neighbors are suspicious of our intentions. I guess this changes the number of invitations we send out.”

Taz laughed at Tag’s humor and said, “So what is the plan now?”

“Colonel, I’m not sure that we can trick them in close. If they are so worried that half their fleet leaves, I just don’t see anyone getting close to the planet unless the screen just goes completely down. Even then I suspect they will fire a few nuclear missiles at some of our population centers to make sure we’re not bluffing. Do you think differently?”

“You think they’ll stay away even if we let a few shots get through?”

“Put yourself in their place. Their commander has seen firsthand how powerful your weapons are on these asteroids. Would you get close under any circumstances?”

They watched their monitors and the ships surrounding Earth moved no closer than 70,000 miles. “You’re probably right. What do you want to do?”

“How are the dreadnaughts affecting your screens?”

“They are actually draining a huge amount. If they could stay at it for a year they could probably get us down to dangerous levels. I would have thought we could hold our own with solar energy but whatever system they designed really takes energy.”

“Is there anything you can do about it?”

“We can send them more energy than they can handle. They are outside our beam range but they give us a perfect conduit to fire a needle thru their beams into their ships. It will give us a chance to try the new larger needle. With the oversized Coronado Cells, the size of the circle got much bigger with nine foot cells. We can fire more than 3000 hornets in each of those beams and not even worry about them touching the sides of the beam.”

“Hold off on that, we need to decide what to do about this divided fleet.” Tag touched his control panel and commed Kosiev, “What do you think about the Alliance tactics, Admiral?”

“It does present a problem with preventing their escape. Half their fleet could just jump out of trouble any time they chose. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that the Vgrig Warleader had a little fear in him. I notice he placed his ship in the middle of the fleet out near Jupiter. I’d say we got his full attention on his last visit. Kosiev paused and said, “If he’s that afraid, I don’t think you could trick them in close. You would have to be willing to lose some population centers before any of them approached the planet.”

“Colonel Taz and I have reached the same conclusion. Do we just destroy those ships around the planet? I don’t see the outer ships coming in to support the ones in close. Do you?”

“No, once they see we have more than the ninety or so ships they think we have, I expect Chicken Little out there to make a run for it.” Kosiev paused and said, “We could cut their numbers down, though.”

“How?” Tag asked.

“We have the ultra ships. Where do you think they will try to escape to if they run?”

“Probably back to the Alliance main government planet where they jumped in from.”

Kosiev reached into a bag of popcorn and munched a few kernels then said, “We could jump all the Ultra ships to the Alliance system and be waiting for them to jump in. As they enter normal space we could hit them with needles. I could have the ships running full speed crisscrossing thru their arrival location so we could catch a large number of them before they realize what’s happening.”

Tag thought about the idea and said, “We’d be giving away the existence our new ship.”

“We would probably do that anyway. There’s not a realistic probability that we could destroy all 17,000 Alliance ships. Some would escape with recordings to share with their leadership. I see no good reason not to use them in this battle.”

“Well, I don’t have another plan to use, so we might as,” “Tag!” He suddenly heard in his mind.

“Hold on just a minute, Admiral. Danielle, what’s wrong. I notice your thought has levels of distress.”
“Tag, I was talking with Tgon-Gee a few minutes ago and he mentioned that if you were successful in defeating this Alliance fleet that it was a good thing that the Asteroids were in place. When I asked him why; he told me that there were at least fifty other races that would jump at the chance to attack his home world if the Alliance wasn’t there to stop them. I didn’t give it much thought then but it has been bothering me. I called Terl and asked how many of the Alliance members had feuds with each other. Tag, he said more than 90% would attack another member if they could get away with it. If you go thru with the destruction of this Alliance fleet, will the Alliance collapse? If they do, how many lives will be lost because of our actions?”

Tag was stunned. He saw the truth in her words. “It would be like the Grendap and Procians on a massive scale.” Tag could visualize the nuclear holocaust that would ensue.

“Tag, we can’t let that happen,” Danielle thought. “We would lose our souls if we caused that much loss of innocent life.”

“Let me think about this, Danielle. I’ll let you know what we plan to do but we may have no choice but to defend ourselves.”

“Admiral, what do you think will happen to the Alliance if we destroy their fleet?” Tag asked Kosiev.

Kosiev was bewildered. “Did you just come up with that thought? You change directions too fast for me to keep up. To answer your question; I have no idea. Quite frankly, I don’t really care. They chose to attack us and they are responsible for their actions.”

“Admiral, what did we do after we defeated the last Alliance fleet?”

“We went to get revenge on the Cainth.”

“Now I want you to consider your next few answers carefully, Admiral. How do you feel about the Cainth now?”

Kosiev was silent for a long time. “We came very close to destroying another race that is now our friend and Ally. If they had fired one shot, they would have been wiped out.”

“What stopped us from doing it before?”

“The Alliance.” Kosiev said. “Tag what are you trying to say?”

“Admiral, Tgon-Gee and Terl both have confirmed that more than 90% of the Alliance members would attack another member but for fear of the Alliance. Do you want the blood of billions of innocent lives on your hands if we bring the Alliance down?”

Kosiev just looked at Tag on his monitor. He could see cities burning and planets disrupted by heavy space weapons. He could visualize it in small part because he had almost gone thru with the destruction of the Cainth. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t want to cause that; however, I’m a military man and I’ve sworn to protect our world. I don’t see a way out of avoiding battle with this fleet.”

“Then I think I have a plan.” Admiral Kosiev and Colonel Taz listened to Tags ideas and they started nodding their heads after questioning him for thirty minutes. Kosiev thought that perhaps they could make it work.

T
he alliance fleet sat inside the moon’s orbit and watched as the 800 dreadnaughts fired their beams into the eight asteroid fortresses. It appeared that the Humans shield was showing no change but the dreadnaughts reported that it had been reduced in thickness by more than 10 feet. The ships had spread out and were surrounding the planet to make sure no ships could escape. On board the Vgrig ship Death Master the Subleader was watching the display trying to determine how long his fleet was going to have to wait until the screen was sucked dry. It was extremely boring. His sensor officer looked up and said, “Subleader, I have received word from the moon side of the planet that multiple ships are lifting off the planet’s surface and forming up.” The sensor officer paused and said, “It looks like more than ninety ships.”

The Subleader hit his command circuit and called the Warleader to inform him of what was going on. “You say they are forming all their ships into a single formation on one side of the planet.”

“Yes Warleader. It appears they are going to try and break thru our lines.”

The Warleader thought for a minute and said, “Then gather all your ships on that side of the planet and set them to maneuver where ever their remaining ships try to breakout. I think that is all the ships they have left. Leave several ships on the other side of the planet to make sure nothing is happening. Keep me informed, Subleader.”

“As you wish, Warleader,” Then he turned and ordered, “Notify all ships to form up where the Earth ships are forming up. Leave four ships on the opposite side of the planet to watch for another breakout attempt.”

Kosiev watched his display and saw all the Alliance ships inside the moons orbit move to the moon side of the planet. He waited for what he knew was coming and the wait wasn’t very long. “Admiral, they have left four ships on the other side of the planet,” Colonel Taz said. “The coordinates of those four ships follow.”

Kosiev looked at his display and then looked at Lt. Kelly and said, “Pass those four coordinates to the eight Ultra ships we’ve selected and prepare to have them jump in and destroy those ships. The asteroid forts will fire their weapons to distract the fleet and will mask the communications from those four ships.” Kosiev then commed Commodore Rubens on the moon and said, “Commodore, we are going to jump in and destroy the four ships left by the alliance in ten minutes. Start moving your ships up to the surface of the moon away from the fleet. When the four ships are downed, the three thousand ships on the planet will exit on the other side of the planet from the alliance fleet and split to go around both sides of the planet to prevent any Alliance ships from running away from your ships toward the planet. It’s important that your fleet leave the moon at full speed and pin that fleet between the two sides of the planet our ships will be coming from. Once you have the fleet surrounded, hold your position and do nothing unless they attack; only fire on ships trying to escape. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir. Do you think they’ll just sit there?”

I’m hoping that the ninety ships coming out of the planets screen will distract them long enough to confuse them. If they hesitate, then we’ll have them pinned in before they can organize a response. Of course, if they choose to fight, then we will destroy them. The Ultra ships will jump in to the middle of their fleet as you pin them down.”

“We’re moving some of our ships now to the surface using elevators. They’ll be at the bottom of deep craters so the Alliance fleet out near Jupiter won’t be able to see them on their sensors. We should be able to get all our ships moving in less than 2 minutes after you initiate action.”