Defending Earth-Discovery Means Death (29 page)

“Huh?”

“The field that surrounds it is purple. We’re actually not sure what color the ship is.”

“How about invisible?”

“The field is what makes it invisible. However, it appears they have to reduce the power of the field to fire their weapons. They’re not invincible, just different.”

“Tell that to the Feeder Fleet they killed.”

“We could have done the same thing. However, they do represent a danger and we need to really take a good look at them and see what we’re up against.”

“Do I hear you not saying something?”

“We think you should go back and do some scouting.”

Chase stared at the commodore and chuckled, “You can’t be serious? Did you take a good look at the size of that purple monster?”

“Who is better qualified to go, Captain?” Chase looked up and rolled his eyes. “Come on, you know you like excitement.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re safe behind a desk here on Earth.”

“No, I’ll be going with you.”

“Oh my aching ass.”

The commodore laughed, “I’m Derek Desoto.” He lifted his glass of milk and said, “Here’s to living life dangerously.” Derek took a drink of milk and Chase wished he had a bottle of whiskey. This was not shaping up to be at all what he expected. Derek smiled and said, “If there’s anyone you need to say goodbye to, now would be a good time to do it.”

“Why?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow. You’ve been given liberty for the rest of the day. Enjoy it and I’ll meet you at your ship around this time in the morning.” The commodore stood up and carried his tray away. Chase sat and no longer had an appetite. That purple ship rivaled the former Legend Battleships in size. He had a very bad feeling about this.

He lifted his wrist unit, “Jackie, take the rest of the day off.”

“Why?”

“I have the day off and I need to be with you.”

“What’s going on, Chase. I don’t like the tone of your voice.”

“I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ll meet you on the beach.” Chase ended the call and tried to stand up but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. He tried again and managed to stagger out of the building. Those beings had to know about the barrier. This was a suicide mission and he had no choice but to go. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Oh well, what are you gonna do but get in line and take what you’re given. He called in a shuttle and left for the beach.

C
hase sat on his ship and activated all the myriad systems that made it one of the most powerful warships in creation. “Speedy, put the image of that purple ship on the monitor.” He had arrived early because sleep eluded him the night before. He blew out a breath and forced himself to look at the wall monitor. Speedy managed to get a quick photo of the beast an instant before he skipped out. “Can you back it out?” The ship shrunk in size and he looked closely at its hull. “Those long rods must be the beam generators.”

“That would be my guess as well.”

“How many do you see on this image?”

“About a hundred. There’s probably the same number on the side of the ship we don’t see.”

Chase stared at the huge warship and shook his head, “Speedy, I’m not so sure those are beam generators.”

“Then what are they?”

“That ship followed our electronic emissions precisely. They must have detected the probe’s data feed and could see where it was being sent. They also saw Carmichael’s communications even as he flew away in the barrier. The only possible way they could have done that is to have a system that can triangulate where the emissions were being generated and received. Those rods may be a kind of antenna they use to do that.”

“Give me a moment.”

Chase waited and after three minutes he leaned back in his command chair, “What are you doing?”

“I’m searching that ship’s hull for anything that could be a blaster portal. Ummm, what is that?”

“What is what?”

An image grew on the screen and Chase saw a huge section of the ship that was slightly depressed. It was circular in shape and the purple field above it was darker than the rest of the hull. “This must be where that beam is fired.”

“How large is that section of the hull?”

“It’s about two hundred yards in diameter.”

Chase started shaking his head, “I can understand now why the ship has to reveal itself to fire. The power needed to generate that large of a beam must be incredible.”

“It also explains how this ship could destroy huge numbers of ships with one beam. That beam must expand as it moves out from the ship.”

“Lock in the surface features of that hull section and see if there are any more depressions on this side of the vessel.”

“I’m running an analysis now. I’ve found three others on this side of the ship. They all appear to be equally spaced around the center of the vessel.”

“That means it must have six aligned on the equator.”

“Actually, there’s room for seven and I think I see the edge of one disappearing on the side of the ship we can’t see.”

Chase nodded and stared at the ship, “Check out the top and bottom and tell me what you see.”

“You’re right. There’s one located at those points as well. How did you come up with that?”

“I was wondering how that ship could be attacked and if all the beams are on the center line that would leave the top and bottom open to attack. It appears this species have the bases covered on defending their warships.”

“I don’t see any missile ports.”

“What?”

“There doesn’t appear to be room on the hull for missile tubes. At least there isn’t anything that looks like a missile launcher.”

“With those beams, they probably don’t need them.”

“Even the Feeders use missiles and their main weapon is their linked minds. Matter of fact, there is no instance of any species that the alliance has fought that didn’t have missiles.”

“None of them had those peculiar emissions we detected either.”

“There is that. It’s just never good strategy to only have one weapons system on a warship.”

“It is if the weapon is unstoppable.” Chase thought for a moment and his eyebrows went down, “Speedy, did you get a good image of the destroyed Feeder Fleet before the probe was destroyed?”

“Yes.”

“Where was the probe located in relation to that fleet?”

“It was directly above it.”

“Could you examine the images of that fleet and determine which side the Feeder ships were hit from?”

“Give me a minute.”

Chase stared at the images of destroyed and burning warships and thought he saw a pattern. “How did you come up with that idea?”

“I wondered what the range of that beam might be.”

“My analysis shows that every ship in that Feeder Fleet was hit from a single place in the center of their formations. The radius of that fleet was a thousand miles.”

“Are you saying the beam used by this ship has a range of a thousand miles?”

“At least that. There’s no way to tell if ships further out could have been destroyed.”

“Hey, you really are an early bird. Stay in your chair. For the duration of this mission you will be in command.”

Chase looked up and saw Commodore Desoto walk through the port, “Does that mean I can refuse to go?”

Derek laughed, “No, it means you will make the command decisions concerning the operation of the vessel. What’s your computer’s name?”

“Good morning, Commodore. My name is Speedy.”

Derek smiled, “It’s my pleasure to meet you. I seem to see a trend here. Chase Race, Speedy, is there something I should know?”

Chase shook his head, “No. My birth name is Rory but I picked up the name Chase as a child. You know how kids like to rhyme things.”

Desoto smiled, “Are you ready to go?”

“I think I need to share what we’ve determined before you arrived.”

“I think Intelligence has pretty much done a complete analysis of the data.”

“Then humor me and stop us if you’ve already seen this information.”

Derek raised his chair out of the floor and sat down, “Fire away.”

“Speedy, send what we’ve done to his panel.” Chase leaned back in his chair and after a moment, he saw the commodore was starting to get agitated. “Stop the images for a moment, Speedy. What’s bothering you, Sir?”

I want this information sent directly to Intelligence, now.”

“You didn’t make these connections?”

“No we did not. We were of the opinion that those rods were what produced the beams. We missed that blaster portal on the hull.”

“Start the flow again, Speedy.”

At the end of the presentation, Derek shook his head. “We were of the opinion that more than just one ship destroyed that Feeder Fleet. It’s now clear that only one ship did it.”

“Do you still want to go?”

Derek looked at Chase, “Yes, but we’re going to stay out of that galaxy until Intelligence can take a look at this data and see if they find anything else of importance.” Derek smiled, “Did you say goodbye to Jackie?”

“How do you know about her?” Derek lowered his head and looked at Chase through his eyebrows. Chase blew out a breath and shook his head, “You intelligence types know everything.”

“We didn’t know about those blaster portals. Was she ok?”

“She told me to fake an illness, resign from the service, or run for the hills to avoid going. She is not happy about this.”

“Faking an illness is out of the question.”

“I know. I told her that one medical scanner would show I was lying.”

“Now running for the hills, that might work.”

“Only if the hills are in another universe.”

“True, but it was a good idea.”

“I’ve asked her to marry me if I make it back.”

“I imagine that made her angry.”

Chase tilted his head, “It did. How do you know that?”

“Women never like being asked to marry someone under pressure. They want it to be a choice from the heart.”

“It is from my heart.”

“Then why haven’t you asked her before?”

Chase stared at Derek and shook his head, “You sound just like her.” Derek shrugged and Chase rolled his eyes, “I forgot. Intelligence knows everything.”

Derek laughed, “This is a no-brainer. Are you ready to start the trip?”

“How are we going in, Sir?”

“We’re not using the barrier.”

“Well thank God for that.”

“Make no mistake, Captain. We will go into the barrier before we leave but we need to determine if our stealth systems are functional against that ship.”

“You could have waited to tell me that.”

“You’re convinced that ship can see vessels in the barrier?”

“I am.”

“Well, when the time comes, keep a finger on the light drive.”

“Make no mistake, Commodore, my finger will not leave the button.”

Derek laughed and slapped Chase on the back, “This is going to be fun. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Where do you want me to go?”

“Skip out to intergalactic space outside the cluster where that planet is located.”

“Speedy?”

“The light signature is on your board.” Chase tilted his head and pressed the white button on his console. The huge Fleet Building disappeared and was replaced by the darkness of open space. The galaxies in the cluster were brilliant against the dark backdrop of intergalactic space.

Derek stared out of the view port and sighed, “You have no idea how much I’ve missed this.”

“Huh?”

“I was a light ship pilot before I was moved into Intelligence. I’ve never gotten accustomed to not being able to see the grandeur of the universe.”

“I don’t think I could do it, Sir.”

“Do what?”

Chase nodded toward the viewport, “Take a job that would take me away from this.”

“There are days I wish I could go back and change my mind. But that’s just wishful thinking. What’s done is done.”

Chase stared at Derek and felt a kindred spirit. His opinion underwent a change and he felt better about making the trip. He knew what Derek was feeling.

• • •

Rose looked at Admiral Ambrose on her monitor, “What have you been able to find out about this species?”

“I’ve ordered every probe in that cluster reprogrammed to search for those odd emissions our pilot detected.”

“And?”

“It does appear that this species is wide spread in that galaxy where they were initially detected as well as more than a hundred other galaxies in that cluster.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m surprised the Feeders haven’t encountered them before now. I’ve ordered all of our forces out of that cluster and have them on standby until we determine how we match up to them.”

“You’ve not found any of them in the other three clusters?”

“Not yet but the search has only just begun.”

Ambrose hesitated and Rose said, “What else?”

“I had one of our ships move out from that galaxy and see how far those emissions have traveled from the source.”

“What?”

“High Leader, you know that the early radio and television emissions from earth have traveled about seven hundred light years from Earth since they were first broadcast. Beyond seven hundred light years, they don’t exist.”

Rose nodded, “They haven’t had time to travel any further.”

“Exactly right. The light ship was charged to continue moving away from that planet until the emission disappeared. That would tell us how long that species has been using high technology.”

“What did you find out?”

“They were detected all the way out to sixteen thousand light years.” Rose stared at Ambrose and kept her face neutral as Admiral Ambrose said, “This is an old civilization and it’s the opinion of Intelligence that they’ve had enough time to populate all four clusters.”

“They must have detected the Feeders prior to attacking that fleet. They’ve been running around in those clusters for about two hundred years.”

“The consensus is that the destroyed Feeder Fleet was the first one to come close to one of their inhabited planets. It was only three light years from the planet our pilot found.”

Rose thought for a moment and then said, “Thank you, Admiral. I need some time to think about this. I want to know what our pilot finds out.”