Defending Earth-Discovery Means Death (17 page)

“Four minutes until skip!”

Jill looked at the wall speaker and wolfed her sandwich down, “Better not keep him waiting.” She ran up the corridor and buckled into her chair. Her panel was active in less than two minutes. She knew what they were going to face didn’t look good. She closed her eyes and calmed herself. She opened them when she felt the ship leave normal space. A moment later she activated her armor.

• • •

“What are we doing, Sir?”

“I’ve skipped the ship to the outer edge of the Oort Cloud to select a target for our disruptors. I don’t want to enter combat without knowing how powerful they are. Pick a target and take a shot, Commodore.”

Jill smiled, “Alright, you win. I’ll use first names if you will.”

“Fair enough.”

Jill looked at the huge comets in the distance and ran a quick scan. She picked one two hundred thousand miles away and skipped the ship to within ten miles of it. She activated her targeting program and moved the crosshairs on her visor to the middle of the comet’s frozen surface. “Firing in three, two, one…” The comet blew up in a massive explosion. She shook her head and looked out of her cockpit glass at Rocky, “I didn’t see a beam.”

“Willow, play it on her visor.”

Jill saw a slow motion recording of the comet blowing up. She watched it closely and quickly said, “Willow, that beam was more than a hundred yards wide where it hit the comet.”

“Unlike our former disruptors, the dark matter beam doesn’t have tremendous heat. It actually blows apart the matter it hits. It has to be wider than the previous disruptor beam.”

“But what happens if we’re ten miles out from our target?”

“The beam doesn’t lose power until the target is fifty miles out. Even at that range, it should penetrate the Feeder’s Force field and destroy the hull. It probably won’t penetrate through the hull but a ship that loses most of its hull should be out of the fight.”

“Let’s move out and hit a bigger comet.” Jill scanned and skipped the ship twenty miles from a comet more than ten miles long. She activated the voice firing mechanism and the huge comet exploded into three pieces as the majority of it vaporized. “We need to destroy those pieces.”

“Why?”

“Rocky, two of those pieces have fallen out of their orbit and will eventually fall into the solar system’s central planets. I’d really hate one of them to hit Earth.”

“I’ll skip to each of the pieces and you fire as we arrive. I’m going to do this at high speed so let’s see if you can keep up.”

Jill smiled and stared at her visor. In less than a second, Rocky skipped to within five miles of the three huge pieces of rock and ice and Jill exploded all three. “I do like these new disruptors.”

“I thought you would. I’m skipping to the Feeder Search Fleets in thirty seconds. We’re going to full stealth mode and will only communicate on our direct links. Let’s go see what’s been going on in our absence.” Normal space disappeared and a moment later they saw the Feeder Fleets in the distance. “Willow, see what you can pick up in their communications and try to find out when they plan to launch.”

“I’m on it.”

“Rocky, it looks like the fleets are slightly smaller.”

“Run a quick check to see if the ships you collected light signatures from are still present.”

“They are. It looks like the missing ships were taken from the rear ranks.”

“Most Fleet Commanders would never send their best ships.”

“Is that why you had me collect the signatures from the front of their formations?”

“It is.”

“Rocky.”

“Yes, Willow?”

“They’re launching in eight hours.”

Jill heard Rocky sigh. “What’s wrong?”

“I was hoping we would have some more time.”

“Why?”

“I’ve planned a sendoff for them. Jill, do you have some signatures of their ships that aren’t among the ones you collected earlier?”

“I have a couple of thousand from that Fleet Leader’s Fleet.”

“Ok, program our missiles and be ready to launch.”

“Give me ten seconds.”

“All right, everyone go mentally silent. I’m going to open a dialogue with that Fleet Leader.”

“Ready on the missiles.”

Rocky focused on the Fleet Leader and pushed a red button on his panel. He looked at the readout on the top corner of his display and smiled. He was going to promote Commodore Nelson if he made it back. He smiled and thought…

R
ear-Admiral Gibbons looked at the two officers and said, “You understand your mission.”

“Yes Sir.”

“You will not deviate from your instructions!”

“Yes Sir.”

“Go and pick up your team. They’ve been briefed and know their responsibilities. Get it done by the numbers and get out.”

“Yes Sir!”

“Dismissed.”

The two officers saluted and performed a perfect about face. They walked out of the briefing room and then started running toward the elevator. The ride down to the ground floor seemed to take forever, though it was only fifteen seconds. They sprinted to the ground shuttle and it lifted before they were buckled in. The shuttle roared over the giant spaceport and arrived at a light ship with two bows. They exited the shuttle and ran toward the open port. They saw ten Special Forces Warriors standing in a line outside the ship. “Captain, is your equipment on board?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Follow us and get buckled in.”

“Yes Sir.”

Graylin jumped through the port and sprinted up the corridor to his command chair. Cassidy was right behind him and ran to her cockpit. “Why are we being rushed, Lin?”

Graylin skipped the light ship into orbit and looked at Cassie through his cockpit window, “Commodore Nelson just notified Admiral Gibbons that the transports have skipped out. We need to start this operation before they’re used.” Graylin pressed the intercom, “Captain, you need to armor up and be ready to drop.”

“We’re already in our armor, Sir.”

“Skip in ten seconds. Cassie, is your panel active?”

“All systems green, Sir.”

“You’ll be hitting your drop sites in twenty seconds. Don’t waste time getting things done.” Lin looked up, “Moses, do you have confirmation on the Feeder Leader’s location?”

“It hasn’t changed from the last probe report.”

“Did the probe ascertain the second-in-command?”

“Yes, and I’ve changed the drop for Lt. Cromwell.”

“He has the latest download on that location?”

“He has it now and is making the changes in his software.”

“Skip in three, two, one and NOW!”

• • •

The dual bow light ship appeared ten feet above the surface of a planet and an armored warrior dove out of the port. An instant later the light ship appeared in another location and another warrior dove out. In less than ten seconds, all ten warriors had exited the light ship. Lin moved the ship into orbit above the planet and stayed in the barrier. He watched his panel waiting for the warriors to report in.

• • •

Captain Weir looked around the community and saw that most of the inhabitants were out working in the fields. He looked quickly at his visor and saw the new cloaking device had located the thought patterns of the Death Feeder. It was inside its residence. He moved to the front door and came out of the barrier. He stood there and waited. After twenty seconds, he moved back into the barrier and used his gravity compensator to reduce his mass to zero. He jumped and moved at an incredible speed toward the clouds high overhead. He pressed the green button on his armored glove and saw the light ship moving toward him at high speed. It came to a stop and he used his arm thrusters to direct him into the port. In less than fifteen seconds, the other armored warriors were gathered up and the light ship disappeared.

Later, when the Feeder emerged from his residence, it stepped in the footprints outside its door effectively, erasing them. Only two Feeders had the footprints erased by inhabitants they had summoned to their quarters. None of them knew they were visited. It happened so fast that none of the inhabitants saw their presence. It was common practice to stay as far away from the Feeders as possible. The mission was a success, none of the warriors were detected by the Feeders. The new device worked.

• • •

Graylin skipped the light ship back to Earth and landed on a field with a hundred other light ships. The Ground Troops were boarding their ships and Graylin said, “We’ll be going back shortly. An interpreter will be going with you this time.”

“Sir, where did the interpreter learn the language?”

“They’re descendants of the Kerits that came to Earth three hundred years ago. They never gave up hope this day would come and they taught their native language to their children. Do your job first and turn things over to them.”

“Yes Sir.”

Graylin activated his internal communication channel, “Captain Weir, you have the light signature of your team’s destinations. I’ll be dropping you from orbit this time. The probe has collected the others light signatures while we were there so all of your brothers should arrive at the same moment everywhere on the planet. Don’t waste time. Fleet doesn’t want the Feeders to have time to link.” Graylin glanced at his panel, “We’re skipping out in sixty seconds. I wouldn’t recommend knocking.”

“We won’t, Captain.”

Graylin smiled and watched the countdown. It hit zero and he skipped the light ship to the Kerit Planet. The ten Special Forces Warriors disappeared from the small landing bay.

• • •

Captain Weir arrived at his assigned target and determined the Feeder was inside its quarters. His scanner also revealed that there were two young Kerits inside with it. He shook his head and walked up to the door and scraped his armored glove over it. He stepped to the left of the door and raised his projectile pistol. After a moment the door opened and the Feeder looked out of the door. It saw nothing so it stepped out and looked around. As its head turned left it saw Weir pointing a weapon at its head and it tried to mentally take control of him. Its head blew apart as three rounds went into it and the body collapsed to the ground.

“I thought you weren’t going to knock?”

“Sorry, Sir. There were two young Kerit Children in the Feeder’s quarters and I didn’t want to injure them.”

“The interpreter will be arriving momentarily. Try to help him maintain order.”

“Will do.”

• • •

Rocky almost made contact but heard Jill yell, “Stop!”

Rocky looked across at her cockpit and then heard Willow say, “Rocky, Commodore Nelson has sent an emergency notification from the High Leader.”

“What does it say?”

“The Alliance Leadership has come to the decision that using the new missile transports now would be a mistake.”

• • •

“WHAT?!”

“You need to skip out and contact him to find out why.”

“What’s going on, Rocky?”

Rocky sighed, “Jill, I had Commodore Nelson build a new type of missile transport. He’s finished the first fifty and has skipped them out to where I could launch the missiles they’re carrying.”

“Launch from them?”

“Yes. I’ve had all the missiles on all fifty transports assigned a light signature from the data you collected earlier. I intended to launch a million missiles simultaneously at their ten fleets.”

“How many missiles are on each transport?”

“Each transport had ten magazines with two thousand missiles in each one.”

“You planned to launch a million of the light missiles simultaneously?”

“I planned to make them think there is more than just one ship attacking them. I was going to tell the Feeder Fleet Leader that my ships were going to attack all ten fleets to stop him from intruding into our space.”

“I think I understand why the High Leader doesn’t want you to do that, Rocky.”

“Why not?”

“What do you think would happen if you did?”

Rocky thought about it and, after a long moment, he looked across at Jill, “They could possibly stop their search if a million ships were suddenly destroyed.”

“And if they did that, they would go back to their normal search procedures until they could develop a weapon powerful enough to defeat the missiles used against them. It would also jeopardize the attack on the Feeders at the Kerit’s home world.”

Rocky’s eyes narrowed, “What attack?”

“I just received word from Olivia that the attack was moved up when you had the new transports skipped out. They’ve just completed killing all the Feeders on that planet.”

“Well what happens now if I don’t launch?”

“I’ll contact Olivia and see what’s going on. However, what are you going to do now?”

Rocky sighed, “I’m not sure. Give me a few minutes to think about it.” Rocky scowled, “Amber, you might as well start collecting more light signatures while we’re out here.”

“I’ll start with the Feeder Fleet Leader’s fleet and move to another one after I’ve collected his.”

“Rocky?”

“Yes, Willow”

“There are four possible clusters on the line the Feeders are going to search. Should we possibly herd them toward the one with the fewest intelligent species?”

Rocky sighed again as Amber said, “We can leave one of the new stealth probes to collect light signatures. We can arrive at those distant clusters far ahead of the Feeders and start scouting them.”

Rocky thought about it and said, “I think that’s a good idea. Skip us to the transports’ location and I’ll contact Commodore Nelson and let him know what we’re doing. I’m also going to request he send out a wing of scouts to assist us in looking around those clusters.”

“Rocky.”

“Yes, Jill.”

“The operation went off like clockwork and the Kerits have elected to board our transports and move to the Alliance. Admiral Gibbons has requested to speak with you.”

“Amber, skip us to the transports and contact Admiral Gibbons.”

Rocky saw the transports suddenly appear outside his cockpit and Admiral Gibbons appeared on his panel, “I’m sorry we stopped your use of the transports, Admiral.”

“I think I know the reason you did but tell me why you stopped me.”

“Our computers did an analysis of firing that many light missiles at one time and there is a real possibility that one of them would malfunction and the Feeders would collect one of them for study.”