Nowhere to Hide (34 page)

“WHAT!!” The Senior glared at the Father and said, “We will not make the mistake of entering that region. Jump us away.”

The Senior Father turned to the navigator and nodded. The navigator activated his panel and pressed the jump button four times. He looked up at the Senior Father and sent the sensor’s records to his panel. The Senior Father turned dark and said, “Grandfather, it appears they have now disrupted subspace all the way out to the edge of this planetary system. We cannot use our jump drive.”

“HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE US TO ESCAPE THIS SYSTEM?”

“At our normal highest speed, two years.”

The Grandfather looked at the long range picture of the planet and saw hundreds of small Green Ships were appearing, “How are they getting in?”

“Those ships have a faster-than-light drive.”

“I want a definitive answer on what the shortest time it will take us to get out of here.”

“If we start accelerating and keep our thrusters at full power, three months. We will arrive at space that hasn’t been disrupted traveling at ninety six percent light speed.”

“Will we be able to jump at that speed?”

“Yes.”

“Why will it take us so much longer to reach the planet?”

“We will have to decelerate.”

The Nephew at the communication console looked up, “All of our ships are trapped inside the systems they’ve been assigned to attack. They are asking what they should do.” The Nephew looked down and said, “Six thousand of our attack groups have been destroyed. Make that seven thousand.”

The Grandfather knew his death was gathering at the distant planet and he had to do something to make those ships go elsewhere. “Order them to attack their target planets. They can’t stop us all.” The Nephew looked at the Senior Father and he reluctantly nodded. The Senior yelled, “GET US UNDERWAY AND GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!” The huge fleet turned and started accelerating away from the distant planet toward open space.

Chip saw the Invader fleet turn and start accelerating away, “Salud, how long will it take them to escape?”

“Two months, twenty two days, and twelve hours; give or take an hour.”

Chip stared at the fleeing ships and said, “Moe.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Why is this fleet so much larger than all the others?”

“Please launch a microprobe and have it go FTL so I can take a look at the ships in it.”

“Salud.” Chip felt the small jerk as the probe ejected and he saw the blue field form ten miles away. He waited for twenty minutes and heard,

“It appears the Leader of the Invaders is in the middle of those ships; I recognize his flagship.”

“When are the squadrons attacking the Invaders today due to arrive?”

“They will come in twenty two hours from now.”

“Before they start their day off, I want them to join my ships here and go out to properly introduce ourselves to that fleet.”

“I’ll delay the assignments for the ships with you. The ships coming will start their rest time after you deal with that fleet.”

“Moe, I want their attack time shortened by two hours so they’re not completely fatigued when they arrive.”

Chip waited and after two minutes he heard, “I had to change the assignments. They will arrive in twenty hours.”

“Thank you.”

***

Max arrived at one of the Gongil planets and saw the Invaders moving at their top speed toward the distant planet. The four thousand Grey Civilization Main Battleships appeared and his twelve thousand attack ships moved to their assigned missile ship. Max thought about it and activated his communication panel, “Would it be possible to only send a thousand ships in the first attack?”

“What are you thinking?”

Max looked at the Grey Commander on his display, “We’ve been cautioned by our leadership not to waste our munitions. There are only three thousand Invader ships and I want to see if we can do this with three thousand missiles.”

“I’ll send in the first wave and limit it to one thousand ships.”

“Have those ships move out of your formation and my ships assigned to them will go with them.”

***

The Invader Senior Father saw the giant enemy ship gathering off in the distance and knew there was little chance of survival. His giant battleships surrounded the giant transports to give them covering fire and knew the transport’s beams were not strong enough to add much to their defense. He took in a huge breath as he saw a small group of ships move out from the massive enemy formation and strapped himself in his command chair. He saw the small group disappear and after a few moments his ship was savagely rocked to the right. The last thing he was able to do before his ship was blown apart in a massive explosion was to curse the cowardly Senior Grandfather.

***

“Ian.”

“Yes Drey.”

We’ve been able to determine that we can destroy those Invader fleets with just four hundred Green or Grey Main Battleships and three thousand of our ships following them in.”

Ian looked up, “Moe, have you made any adjustments to our attack profiles?”

“I have your, Highness. The Hub and I are changing the assignments of those ships currently taking their rest cycle for the next day’s attacks. The ones currently attacking will have their assignments changed tomorrow during their rest cycle.”

“How does that change our time frames?”

“There aren’t enough Green and Grey Battleships to send on every attack and we’re only using those attack ships and Thetas that have trained on following a missile in. Most of the Theta’s haven’t trained on that procedure but I’ve confirmed that we only need six thousand theta’s to take out one of the Invaders attack groups.”

“How long, Moe?”

“Instead of a year, we should be able to complete this within three months.”

“Does that mean that some of their ships will be able to escape?”

“Most of them have not turned away from their targets and are accelerating at high power. I don’t think many, if any, will escape.”

“Drey, did you hear that?”

“I did.”

“Well, settle in. This is going to be a long haul.”

“Admiral Robinson will be attacking the Invader’s Leader in three hours.”

“I’m going over to watch what happens. Care to join me?”

“I’m already there. See you when you arrive.”

“E, do you have the coordinates?”

“I just got them from Doc; jump warning in ten seconds.”

Ian strapped in and saw normal space disappear around his small ship.

***

The Senior Grandfather saw more than two hundred thousand Green Ships in formation around the distant planet. He had already shot the Senior Father with a blaster for not being able to prevent the other attack groups from fleeing their targets. He also killed the communications Nephew knowing he was from the Senior Father’s Family. He knew his time was up and he turned to his weapons Niece, “Power up the emergency probes.” She looked at him and slowly shook her head. The Grandfather went over and placed one of his pseudopods on her and said, “We can’t wait for them to arrive here. I’ve already recorded the message and the end is clear, Child.”

The Niece blew out the breath she had been holding from her skin and lifted a cover from an orange button. She looked up at her Grandfather and pushed it.

***

Chip was watching the Invader Fleet on his display coming in from a microprobe that was located just outside their formations. He slowly stood up and walked over to his main wall display, “What are they doing?” The huge ship at the center of the giant formation had moved out beyond the edge of the formation. Suddenly, thousands of bright orange streaks left the giant ship at an incredible speed. “Salud, what are those!”

“I’ve frozen one of them on your display before it ignited its thrusters. They are accelerating at an incredible velocity toward open space.”

“How fast are they moving?”

“They’ll reach light speed in less than a minute.”

“Can we get ships out to intercept them?”

“By the time they arrived, those things will be little more than an energy wave moving through normal space. There’s no way we can match speed to take them out. We can’t fire on them from inside the FTL field and if we remove it the projectile will blow past faster than we could react.”

“Couldn’t we get out in front of them and fire a beam in their projected path?”

“No, they are all changing courses erratically.”

“Moe, what are those?”

“I’ve looked at the sensor records and it appears they are communication probes.”

“What?”

“They contain a communication module inside them. It appears they are being sent to contact someone a great distance from here.”

“Do they have jump capability?”

“No, I didn’t detect a jump drive.”

***

Drey watched the launch of the thousands of probes and heard Moe’s conversation with Chip. He broke in on the conversation, “Moe, are you certain there’s no way we can intercept those probes?”

“Admiral, they have spread out and I’ve already lost half of them from my sensors. They are changing course every ten seconds and plotting their courses without keeping them inside our sensors coverage is impossible.”

Drey knew they were going for help. He thought about it and said, “Moe, none of the Invader’s ships can escape. We have to stop them all.”

Chip looked at Drey on his display, “Why?”

“Because they do have jump drives and they can jump directly to the ones those probes are being sent. They have to all be destroyed.”

Moe said, “Admiral, we will have to reduce the rest time to twelve hours instead of twenty four. If we do that, we should be able to kill them all.”

“Change it to six hours if you must. None of their ships can escape. Now make it happen.”

“What’s going on?”

“Ian, get Admiral Robinson to fill you in. I’ve got to get our ships moving.”

Moe interrupted the conversation, “Drey, if we shorten the time to do this, I suspect Cole will not be able to build the missiles fast enough.”

“Then forego the reactor construction and concentrate on the missiles. If ships break down we’ll just have to go to double shifts to make this happen.”

Moe said, “I’ll contact Cole and fill him in.”

Ian looked at Chip, “I was planning to stay but I’m certain I’m going to be needed back in the Alliance. Good hunting, Admiral.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” The two ranking leaders of the Alliance Military flew away at high FTL speed and Chip was glad he only had to worry about four attack fleets instead of the Alliance’s millions of ships. He saw the last of his ships arrive along with the huge Green and Grey Battleships. “Salud, do you have the attack plan ready?”

“I do and I’m sending the assignments now.”

“Let me know when you’ve finished.” Chip leaned back in his chair and wondered what that Invader Leader was thinking.

“We’re ready.”

Chip stared at the display a moment longer and then pressed his panel, “Execute your attack plan.” Two hundred thousand Theta Warships went FTL behind the fifty thousand giant Green Battleships.

***

The Senior Grandfather watched the outer layer of his escorts blown away by the huge incoming wave of missiles and small ships. He decided that his craving for power had blinded him to his responsibility of protecting the Clan. Everything he had done was to ensure he kept his position of power. Now, his family was paying the price for his arrogance. Another layer of battleships was blasted into rubble and the giant transports around his ship began going up in giant explosions. He looked over at his Niece and saw her fear. He stood up, slid over to her and wrapped her in a close embrace, “I’m so sorry, Child; this is my fault.” She saw the giant blast of the transport holding station above them through the main viewport as it exploded and blew a huge debris field into their force field rocking the ship violently. She closed her eight eyes and then there was nothing.

***

Chip watched the last ship explode and pressed his communicator, “Go to your next assigned targets. Make sure you do not waste your missiles and make each hit count.”

The two hundred thousand Thetas went FTL, arrived at the edge of disrupted space, and jumped away to their assigned planets. Chip remained behind and stared at the giant debris field. He knew it shouldn’t bother him but these creatures stood no chance against the forces the Alliance was able to mass against them. If they had the ability to travel faster than light, the outcome would be entirely different. He sighed. But they didn’t; at least not this time. Once those probes arrived at their destination, things might be different in the next confrontation. “Permission to come aboard, Sir.”

Chip looked at his display and saw Lilly’s ship coming in from the edge of disrupted space. “Permission granted. What brings you here?”

“Admiral Montgomery has checked our action status and has ordered you and I to take twelve hours off. He says the Obelisk and Hub will direct our forces while we’re….uhhh…resting.”

“I need you here with me, Lilly. I need a break from all this death.”

Lilly’s expression softened, “I’ll be in momentarily, Chip.”

Chip stood and looked at the massive cloud of debris and shook his head. He turned and headed for the landing bay to meet Lilly.

T
wo months and eight days later, Drey sat slumped in his command chair on Doc and watched the final Invader Fleet being set up by the ships assigned to destroy it. They were still twelve days from exiting disrupted space and they knew their end was near. The Thetas conducting the attack had exhausted their missiles along with the rest of the Alliance Fleets three weeks earlier but had learned how to go in and take them out with their boson beams. The pilots that had survived the long campaign were the best of the best and were truly a force to be feared. Drey watched as the last Invader Battleship exploded and his communication panel beeped three seconds later. He activated it and saw Dee smiling at him, “Hello, my Love. I’ve missed you so much.”

Dee smiled that beautiful smile that would light up a room and lowered her eyes with a mischievous expression, “Guess what?”