Probe Predators (23 page)

Gil stared at the screen and said, “Computer, how long will it take for the ship coming in at light speed to arrive, fire its weapons, and depart?”

“Twenty eight hundredths of a second.”

“And how long does it take for a Thresher Blaster to swivel a hundred and eighty degrees?”

“Thirty one hundredths of a second.”

Gil looked stunned, “Jim, they won’t be able to hit it.”

“If they do what we hope, you’re right.”

Gil shook his head, “This will only work once. Once they see we’re going after their blasters, they’ll use the inner and upper band around them to defend them.”

“But then they leave the thrusters opposite the blaster’s locations defended by only two blasters. They can’t defend both in their current design.”

“They could turn the upper blasters toward the reactors.”

“And we’ll have our ships coming in from above to go to light speed and attack.”

Gil chuckled, “We need to get the lads training on this.”

“Let’s really examine the lower hull for a weakness. We need as many avenues in as we can find. We’ll start training once we determine our attack points.” Gil nodded and pulled up a chair to Jim’s panel.

• • •

The Major Claw looked at the recordings of the destruction of three warships on his huge wall monitor and was furious. His First Leg said, “He was unable to determine how those first two ships were killed. There were two other ships that were damaged and will require repair.”

“What kind of repairs?”

“Their hulls weren’t penetrated but the shock of the hits from those high speed projectiles was transferred to the two ships’ structure. Hundreds of the crew were injured and numerous support structures were weakened. They could not withstand another similar hit.”

The Thresher Leader turned to his highest ranking subordinate and said, “I should have him executed.” The First Leg remained motionless and silent. “Do you disagree with me; speak up, I won’t punish you for being honest.”

“What would you have done differently?”

The Major Claw stared at his advisor and thought about the question. After a few minutes his pincers stopped snapping and the First Leg breathed a sigh of relief. The Master was calming down. “I can think of several other things that could have been done but I would have probably set it up the same way. Do you see anything?”

“The ships that attacked the second time were different from the first attack; they also arrived much faster.”

“I saw that; what does that tell you?”

“They are able to track our jumps.”

“I thought that was impossible.”

The First Leg shrugged, “Impossible is a bad word to use often. There is no other way they could have arrived so quickly.”

“The planet could have sent a distress call.”

“They began scanning our ships in less than ten seconds after our arrival. I would be amazed if anyone could respond that quickly to a distress call. Also keep in mind that these were different ships from the first attack. The third attack was made up of ships similar to those used in the first attack. That would appear to indicate there are different alliances attacking our ships.”

The Major Claw started a rhythmic up and down motion with his body that told the First Leg he was deep in thought. “They’re testing our capabilities.”

“It does appear they are and they’ve discovered two different ways to kill our ships.”

“I don’t want to run the risk of scaring the Family away when it arrives. We’ll need all of their fleets to jump in before we attack.”

“Then back off and we’ll handle both of them at the same moment.”

“I’m not so sure taking on a Family and a civilization that can kill our warships at the same time is good strategy.”

“Probably not; but what options do you see we have?”

“Send another thousand to fill in the gaps in their scans and send provisions to them from our storage planets. The additional ships should allow them to defend themselves until the Family arrives.”

“And what if the Family refuses to come this time?”

The Major Claw started snapping his pincers again. The First Leg saw he was clearly addicted to eating the Family. “Do you know anything that would lead you to even suggesting that to me?”

“No, but they’ve not taken this long to come in the past.”

“Yes they have.”

“I beg your forgiveness; I was unaware of that.”

“Get out!”

The First Leg nodded and left the Major Claw’s chamber. He shook his head and wondered if this troublesome galaxy was going to lead to the Major Claw being replaced. He had been waiting so long to assume command of the Threshers. One could only hope. He also decided to continue his refusal to ever taste one of the Family. This total lack of good judgment was inexcusable. However, that’s what addictions led to.

• • •

The Command Claw looked at his display and shook his head. He was being replaced by another Command Claw. He looked at his ship’s Claw, “Move all of our ships into a group. Have them spread out when the support Shell arrives so that we maintain a scan of the entire galaxy.”

“How many ships are coming?”

“A thousand; have their coordinates ready before they arrive. Make sure my two hundred ships remain together in the line.” The Claw nodded and turned to his bridge crew. The Command Claw didn’t like this new development but had to admit he was fortunate to have kept his life. He would keep a low profile and hope the new Commander wasn’t a hard shell.

• • •

“Admiral, the Thresher Warships have jumped away from their current location.”

“Where did they go?”

“They moved from positions scattered around the galaxy; it appears they are forming into a single line.”

Drey looked at Dee, “What are they doing? Are they planning to launch a general attack?”

Dee closed her eyes and focused on the information. After a moment she said, “Moe, if those ships are still going to scan M87 for the Family’s arrival, how many more ships will be needed to complete their globe if you take into consideration the gaps between their ships?”

“Between nine and eleven hundred.”

Drey stared at Dee, “You think they’re going to continue to wait on the Family’s arrival?”

“I do. You saw how the Thresher prisoners were almost in ecstasy when they described how good they tasted. They’ve been on station for a while and I think they worry if they did attack M87 with a general assault, the Family would arrive and see them.”

Drey nodded slowly and heard Moe say, “A thousand Thresher Warships have now joined the original group.”

“Boy, you’re good.”

“Moe knew it, too.”

“Yes I did but I have the ability to run millions of calculations a second.”

Drey stared at the eleven hundred and ninety eight ships on his monitor and watched them power down their force fields. “I wish there was some way to hit them with their defenses down.”

Dee smiled.

• • •

Jinx looked at Drey and Dee and shook his head, “If we could do this, why have we waited?”

“What would we have learned about their capabilities if we did?”

Jinx looked at Dee and shrugged, “Nothing, I guess.”

“We needed to find a way to kill them and doing it on our ground instead of open space where they could gang up on us was the best strategy. We also had to know if M87 was going to be able to offer any support to our efforts. We’ve been able to answer those questions and it now appears to be the time to take the initiative.”

“You know this might trigger the general invasion.”

Drey nodded, “We’ve considered that possibility.”

“And?”

“Moe seems to think its 60-40 in our favor that they won’t.”

Jinx frowned, “We could use more time to build up our inventory.”

“Our probes haven’t been able to get a track on where those ships are coming from. We’re going to allow one of them to run and it will have a stalker attached to it. We hope to go and take this conflict to their home. The only way we can do that is to force one of them to run.”

“Who are you going to send on this mission?”

“The Zombies.”

Jinx stared at Drey and then nodded. “I’ll get the word out.”

“That would be good, Admiral.”

• • •

Katy issued a call up and saw Jim and Gil come running toward her from across the giant hangar as alarms began blaring, “What’s going on, Sir?”

“Fleet seems to think we can hit more than eleven hundred Thresher Ships and take them out.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“Their defensive and offensive systems are turned off so they won’t be seen by the Family when they arrive. Fleet says if we accelerate to FTL speed and drop to sub light speed when we get close; we might just catch them with their pants down.” Katy looked at Jim, “You’re my resident expert on FTL; are they right?”

“Just how fast will we be moving?”

“They say two thousand times light speed during our approach.”

“There’s no way we’ll be able to avoid objects in our path.”

“The Thresher Ships are all in open space surrounding M87.”

Jim shrugged, “Then it is doable. We might lose some ships to cosmic debris floating in open space.”

“Then we’ll miss some of them. Fleet has ordered one of them to be avoided in an effort to get it to jump away. Get with our intelligence team and take a look at what the probes have sent us. I need a plan quickly.” Jim nodded and tilted his head toward the far end of the hangar. Gil turned with him and they sprinted away. Katy shook her head; fleet knew this was a dangerous exercise. The stream from the black hole at the center of M87 dumped massive amounts of particles and energy into space around the galaxy. She hoped for the best but expected the worst.

• • •

Rolf watched the ships beside him as they traveled at super light speed. He accepted his demotion stoically and knew the Admiral had made the right decision. He never considered planning attacks to survive them. He longed to have it all over and he was surprised the Admiral had chosen him to go on this mission. He owed her.

He kept a close eye on the ships pacing his vessel and kept his hands on the steering controls. He always expected the worst to happen. An hour into the flight he saw a ship to the right of him flash blue. The one next to it flashed as well and he pulled up on the controls and felt his Needle fight but then change course. He flew for six more minutes and then moved his ship back to the planned trajectory. He saw that two ships had disappeared. He could see beyond the gap that the others had made it but he knew he was the only survivor of the three ships slotted to take out three of the Thresher Warships. Would this flight never end? “Destiny, put the last reported orientation of the ships to the right of my target. Give me a view of their positron emissions.”

Rolf stared at his display and saw the ship next to his target on the right had a bright glow to the left of center. His target and the one to the left did not have a reactor where he could hit them. He stared at the display and after three minutes he said, “Destiny, swing us out to the right of the ship left of our target.”

“How far out do you want to go?”

“I want to come over the second ship to my right and fired a broadside at the hull over the reactor.”

“I can manage that. What about the ship you’ve been given to destroy?”

“As soon as you fire the broadside, go to super light speed briefly, go over the top of the ship we fired on and start a descending line toward the next ship’s thrusters. Fire a full spread of Pegs at the thrusters and go back to super light speed. Take us under the second ship and aim for my target ship.”

“We’ll exhaust our Pegs if I fire a full spread at the first two.”

“I know.”

“That last ship might have its force field active by the time we arrive.”

“If they can bring a force field to full power in less than half a second, my hats off to them.” Rolf paused, “I’m sorry, Destiny.”

“Don’t be, Rolf; I’m ready to do this with you; ten seconds until we arrive at our turn. It’s been fun.”

Rolf smiled and held the controls lightly and let Destiny guide the Needle. No human’s reflexes could match a computer in flying a space ship at light speed. He hung on and felt the gravity compensators kick in as the small vessel turned and rushed at a giant orange ship at an unbelievable speed.

The Needle turned sideways as it passed the first ship and fired two blaster beams and four Pegs from its starboard weapon array. Rolf saw the universe change briefly and then the second ship was rushing up on him. He felt the slight vibration as the bow tubes launched his last Pegs and then the universe disappeared around him again for a moment. It returned and he saw the third ship rushing up on him at an incredible velocity. He began whispering the names of his family as he pulled the controls back slightly and punched through the Thresher’s weak force field as he entered the giant thruster at a speed only slightly below the speed of light. Rolf closed his eyes as he hit the giant vessel…and then there was nothing.

Jim watched the attack from long distance and saw three giant Thresher Warships all explode simultaneously. The blasts were tremendous and knocked his display offline briefly. Of the eleven hundred and ninety eight ships, only six survived the initial strike and the six hundred survivors killed five of them in a fierce battle that lasted thirty minutes. One of the Thresher Warships jumped away as four hundred ships moved in on it. Two hundred more ships were lost killing the last five but the Thresher Warships were all burning hulks. He ordered the survivors home and nodded slowly; this was worth the price.

T
he Major Claw was past rage but saw his First Leg appeared to be calm and composed. That made him even angrier but he knew he couldn’t just rip his advisor apart like he so wanted to do. The First Leg was the son of one of his principle allies and to kill that self-composed piece of grug would lead to severe repercussions. He fought the emotions threatening to take him and forced himself to breathe deeply, until he regained control. He was truly thankful the First Leg’s parents were addicted to the Family’s taste. When the next Family was found, he was going to shove one of them down the First Leg’s mouth personally. Then he’d see how composed the First Leg would be when the taking of a Family was jeopardized. He knew the First Leg was aware of his motivations and it angered him again. “Breathe,” he thought, “Just Breathe.”