Defending Earth-Discovery Means Death (26 page)

“Admiral.”

“Yes Sir.”

“I need you to go to Eden and make sure the new screening devices are ready for installation in the recruits’ armor. They may finish ahead of schedule and I don’t want them to be delayed in being assigned a ship.”

“I’ll skip out in ten minutes, Sir.”

“Thanks, Eddy.” Matt pushed a button on his console and saw Admiral Hughes appear, “Ethan, how is the training of the ground forces coming along?”

“I’ve promoted a group of commanders on each of the Alliance Planets that are recruiting forces to fill the ranks. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the response. Sam has joined me and is having the training facilities built at high speed to start their basic training.”

“What about the production of armor?”

“The replicators have been built and are being shipped in from Eden and Earth. It’s going to be close, but we should manage to stay ahead of the curve, slightly.”

“What about the pilot’s training facilities?”

“Jelek and Palel have really knocked a few heads together on the Myot and Johan planets to get them moving. By the way, it was a good idea to use the Welken to get the job done.”

“The Myot and Johan pay attention to them.”

“It’s going to start slow at first, Matt but things will start to accelerate and we should be in good shape within a year.”

“Good. I’m going to start the process of cleansing some of the conquered galaxies with the regulars while the recruits are getting up to speed. I’m counting on you and the others to get them organized and trained to fight together as quickly as possible.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of transferring more than ten thousand officers out of the Goran and Human Navies to assist in that effort.”

“You need to assign them a command when they train their replacements.”

“I’m surprised at how you anticipate what I’ve been thinking about. If each of the fleets we’re building have more than a half a million warships, we’re going to need good officers to lead the squadrons and Navies. Ten thousand will just give us our senior officers.”

“We’ll promote the others from within the ranks of the new flyers. Keep me updated on how things are going.”

“Yes Sir.”

Ethan sat back in his chair and was once again amazed at how Matt seemed to be on top of everything that needed to be done. It was like he was seeing the finished product in his mind. He didn’t want to admit it but he was initially ticked off that the Lieutenant was promoted over him. He kept it to himself and he was glad he did There was no way he would be able to do what Matt had accomplished in such a short period of time. He was young and truth be told, inexperienced. But he had never seen anyone with his organizational skills. That is what was needed to get the new fleets built. He sighed and guessed being promoted to a Senior Fleet Admiral was not so bad either. He pressed his communicator and pulled up the Commander of the Screening Device Factory on Eden. He was also decent at getting things done.

• • •

“What do you mean we can’t locate one of our minor fleets?”

“We’ve been attempting to communicate with them for eight units of time and they have not responded.”

“How many warships were in the fleet?”

“Ten thousand, Fleet Leader.”

“Where were they last contacted?”

“Our last documented contact was six months ago. One of our Communication Specialists noticed that nothing had been heard from them since that contact.”

“Was everything normal during the last contact?”

“It was.”

“What was their assigned territory?”

“That’s the issue, Fleet Leader. They were assigned a huge area to search in the first cluster. The Leader of the Fleet could move in any direction he deemed appropriate. We have no idea of where that fleet went after their last communication.”

“This is not good.”

“No Fleet Leader, it isn’t. If one of the Ship Leaders were still alive, it would respond to our communications.”

“So you think the fleet has been destroyed?”

“I see no other reason for their not responding. Something must have destroyed that fleet fast enough to prevent it from communicating.”

“Is that possible?”

The Fleet Leader’s Second turned its head, “I don’t want to believe it but facts seem to dictate it had to happen. Something destroyed that fleet so fast that it didn’t get out a warning.”

“And all the ships in that fleet had the upgrades?”

“They were all two force field warships.”

“Recall the Fleet. We’re going to the last reported location and start a search for them. I want every minor fleet reporting in every hour to our communications and I want an instant report on anything that turns up out of the ordinary.”

“I will issue the recall immediately.”

The Fleet Leader hesitated and then pressed the frequency of the Supreme Leader. He appeared on his display and he reported what had been found. He took his fleet to the first cluster and had his ships fan out to find the missing Minor Fleet and after ten days, the Supreme Leader sent two other fleets to assist in the search.

One would think that it would have been found quickly. But ten thousand warships are miniscule against the size and scope of a galactic cluster. They never would have found it but for the Second suggesting that the missing fleet may have been moving on an inhabited planet to collect food for the crews. Once they limited their search to only inhabited planets, the pieces of the fleet were found.

• • •

The Supreme Leader looked at the burned out wreckage of ten thousand warships and was shocked at what little remained. He looked at the three fleet leaders on his panel and said, “Report what you’ve been able to determine.”

The Fleet Leader, who originally found the fleet missing, said, “They were fired on from close range and whatever was used against them was not slowed by the two fields.”

The Supreme Leader stared at the remains, “I thought our upgrades would protect our ships?”

“We all did, Great Leader. This is either something new or we’ve been deceived by the enemy.”

“What do you mean deceived?”

“I’ve reviewed the last attack by them and only one of our ships was destroyed. There is no accounting for why that ship was destroyed. It was decided that it must have had a faulty force field generator.”

“You’re saying the enemy launched missiles designed to fail against our new ships but fired one real one to make sure they would defeat our new technology.”

The Fleet Leader was impressed with how quickly the Supreme Leader put it together. He was in his position for a reason. “I don’t want to believe it, but the almost instant destruction of this fleet seems to point toward it. If this is true, all of our fleets are in danger.”

“Why haven’t they attacked before now?”

“I have no answer for that. The planet the destroyed fleet was moving toward didn’t do it. It has not developed space travel yet and has a civilization based on fossil fuels.”

“Where can they be?”

“They could be anywhere Great Leader. Look at how long we searched for this fleet and we knew the area it was last located. We’ve not scratched the surface of these four clusters and our enemy may be watching us laughing at our efforts.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at the remains of this fleet. Do you think they have anything to fear from us? Our new technology did nothing to protect these ships. We are all in danger.”

“The Unity will not allow us to leave until we complete our search.”

“Then we are all in danger’s path, Great Leader.”

The Supreme Fleet Leader looked at his Second and saw him shaking his body. “I want all fleets to order the ships on the edge of their formations to constantly fire their gravity beams. They will them rotate into the center of the formation to recharge their reactors while another layer will take their place to continue the firing.”

The three Fleet Leaders acknowledged the order and the display went dark. The Supreme Leader contacted the Unity and reported the findings and wished he had just remained silent. It was as he suspected. The Unity’s paranoia was too much to overcome. He moved his fleet into the middle of a nebula filled with dust. He parked it there knowing that anything moving into the nebula would leave a trail in the dense dust. He was also a little paranoid. He settled in for a long search. The ships in his fleet were thankful to be where they were. The other fleets would just have to find a way to survive a vicious enemy.

• • •

Captain Ohcemta looked at the two hundred light ships gathered in formation around him. The Myot shook his head and wondered if he were up to the task of getting his command ready for combat. The Supreme Admiral had kept his word and the first two hundred recruits that completed simulator training were placed under his command.

He finished the training first and was given advanced training on the Fleet Maneuvers simulator while the others finished. He activated his communicator and looked at his visor as the ships linked in to his frequency. “I know all of you are nervous about the next part of our training. We’re going to do this by the numbers and start slowly until all of us get a feel for what our ships are capable of doing. We’re going to start by assigning a light signature to each of you and we will all skip to that signature and fire a training disruptor beam at it upon arrival. You will be timed on how long it takes you to hit your target and we’ll immediately skip back to this location after you fire.

Do not skip back until you hit your target. Our first skip will be a mile out from the target. Once you become proficient, we’ll double that range. After that, we’ll continue to double it until we determine the limits of our disruptors. Hold your questions until after this initial exercise is completed. You will activate your weapon consoles on my command and then skip out five seconds later. Ready, activate your weapons!”

Captain Oh remained behind and saw that forty-seven ships took longer than five seconds activating their weapons and were late skipping out. He pulled up the target field on his tactical monitor and saw numerous disruptor beams firing at the brightly lit targets and missing. It took thirty seconds for all his ships to return to formation. He had his computer analyze the results and saw that ten of his ships had performed far above average. He lifted his communicator, “The following ten pilots are promoted to Wing Commanders and will move to the wing they’re being assigned. You will link with the ships in your wings and instruct them on how you were able to perform the mission within the time constraints. We will do this again in another hour.” Oh sent the list of names and watched as the new Wing Commanders moved to their commands. A ship was sent out of the wings to replace them in their former positions where necessary.

Oh waited and listened in on the conversations taking place and smiled. Admiral Silva was right. They did learn better from one of their own. At the end of an hour he interrupted the discussions and said, “You will activate your weapon consoles in five seconds and repeat the exercise.”

Oh watched the formation and all of them skipped out on time. Only four ships missed their first shot this time. They were all back within the mission’s parameters. “The four ships that missed their initial shot will activate their weapons panel in five seconds and repeat the exercise again.” Oh knew that these pilots were not accepting their computer’s targeting solutions and were trying to verify them. They’d learn soon enough that was a sure way to die. After two more repeats, the entire command repeated the exercise and no ship missed their targets.

“That was well done. Set your light drives for two miles from your targets and all of you are being assigned a new light signature now. Activate your weapon panels in three seconds and skip out three seconds later. Start now.”

Captain Oh ran them through the exercises over and over again until the pilots were having to activate their panels and skip immediately afterwards. By the end of the day, all of them were hitting their targets and the unit came together with their mutual successes. They began to feel confident and when the exercises moved out to ten miles, and then twenty miles, they were all proficient at hitting their targets. Oh knew that the pilots had to develop a trust with their ship’s computers and the computers also had to learn the strengths and weaknesses of their pilots. It would have to support them where they needed it most.

After four days, Oh looked at his command gathered around his ship and said over the general frequency. “Today, you are going to do something new. You will be given an initial light signature to attack and while you are firing, your computer will collect another signature from a different group of targets. You will skip out to your next light signature immediately after you hit the target and continue to skip to the new signatures as they come in to your panel. The targets will all be at different distances and you will not skip out until all targets are hit! You are now free to skip to your first target.”

The two hundred ships disappeared and Oh watched his monitor. He wanted to know which pilots under his command could think fast enough to make critical decisions. Every one of them would have a target that was already destroyed. Let’s see how they responded.

It didn’t surprise him that his Wing Commanders immediately ignored the destroyed targets and skipped to the next signature. An Audon Wing Commander did it the fastest. The reflexes of the birds were incredible. The first ships arrived about ten seconds ahead of the others and Oh said, “Did you get a list of the early arrivals, Gravity?”

“I did.”

“Show me where they’re assigned in the command.” Oh looked at the diagram on his display and saw that most of them were in the Audon’s wing. He smiled and activated the communicator, “The following pilots will be promoted to Lieutenants and will be second-in-command to their Wing Commanders. You will receive your new positions momentarily. Wing Commander Flexrel you are promoted to my Second-in-Command and your second will assume your position as Wing Commander. His second will be determined during the next exercises.

Oh’s display activated, “Captain Oh.”