Probe Predators (27 page)

T
he Union and M87 Fleets were gathered outside M87 and every ship in the massive formation was locked on their panels, watching the Thresher Warship they were designated to attack. The initial jump was synchronized and the immediate acceleration to FTL was being done by the ship’s computers. The trackers had been launched the day before and were attached to the ships in the four sectors that were not going to be attacked. No one wanted to miss their targets and tension ran high in the Union and M87 Fleets.

Drey and Kragon sat in the Central Command Control Room watching the feed from the probes at the Thresher Planet. Katy walked in and both of them were surprised, “Admiral, what are you doing here?”

“I think I’ll have a better view of what’s happening here. Do you mind if I watch the attack with you?”

Drey looked at her and said, “I mean, what are you doing
here?”

Katy looked at them and after a moment said, “Admiral Tollervar gave me direct orders not to participate in the attack. He said the Senior Staff felt I was too important to lose in this first mission. I thought you issued those orders?”

Drey looked at Kragon and saw his expression. He turned to Katy and smiled, “Admiral, I have issued so many orders over the last month, I can’t remember where I’m supposed to be most of the time. However, you have to see that order was a good one.”

Katy sighed and shook her head, “It’s killing me not to be there with my fleet. I chose not to go because I don’t know if I could have not gone in with my Zombies.”

“How does your fleet feel about this?”

“I think they were somewhat anxious at first; but Group Leader Logan explained I was ordered not to participate and they agreed with the order. They want to prove to me that they can do it on their own. I still want to be there.” Katy looked around, “Where is Admiral Tollervar?”

Kragon looked at Drey, shook his head, and turned back to Katy, “He’s going in with the Zombies.”

“WHAT!?!” I need to speak with him.”

Drey motioned to an empty console, “Give him a call.”

Katy went to a console and punched in Jinx’s contact code. Jinx appeared on the display and Katy said in a voice with pure menace, “What are you doing!?!”

“Admiral, I forbid you to go in with your warriors. I didn’t want them to be stuck out there without support from Fleet. I determined that I might offer them some help in getting our fleets to send whatever they needed to get the job done.”

“If it’s too dangerous for me; it’s too dangerous for you. You are a manipulating slug; I should be there!!”

Jinx looked at Katy and said, “Are you in the Control Room?”

“I AM!”

Jinx said, “Drey, are you listening to this?”

Drey rolled his eyes and looked up at the ceiling as Katy looked at him across the room, “I am.”

“If you had to choose one of us to lose; which one would it be?”

“Now Admiral Tollervar; that’s not a fair question; both of you are extremely important to the Union.”

“Drey, I need your honesty; which one?”

Drey stared at his panel and looked over at Katy, “I could afford to lose you; the loss of Admiral Kemper would be something I couldn’t afford to happen.” Katy was stunned.

Jinx looked at Katy on his panel, “If I had a fleet, then it might have been a hard call; however, I don’t. You are much more important than I am, Katy. I couldn’t allow your fleet to go in without making sure they had everything they needed once the attack kicked off.”

“You are much more important than I am.”

“I can’t control the Zombies. I can only assist them. We need you to lead them and I can be replaced. This is a no brainer. I do want to tell you that I’m proud of what you’ve done; you are much more than I suspected and your fleet is the best the Union has.”

The panel went dark and Katy looked at Drey and Kragon. Kragon said, “He’s right. There are others that can be Admiral Montgomery’s Second. You cannot be replaced.”

Katy sat back in her chair and shook her head, “I should be the one in danger; not him. He should have been given a fleet.”

Drey stared at Katy and slowly nodded, “I agree. He should have a fleet.” Katy’s eyebrows lowered and Drey said, “He has been working with the secondary fleets and, if it meets with Kragon’s approval, I’m going to make him their commander.”

“I approve; he’s being wasted here.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that; he has kept things organized and running smoothly.”

“Kyle can do that for you now.”

“I suppose.” Drey looked at his monitor, “They’re jumping in forty seconds.”

• • •

The two giant fleets activated their jump fields and their formations glowed with a white brilliance that could be seen a hundred miles away. Suddenly, the giant formations disappeared.

• • •

A Ship’s Claw sat in his command chair and looked at the planet below him. He knew they were waiting for a Family to arrive at a distant galaxy. He hoped they would arrive soon; the boredom of having nothing to do was mind numbing. He heard over his shoulder, “That’s odd.”

“What…” was his last word as his ship was hit by three Pegs. The giant orange ship blew up and broke into pieces that scattered out from the giant blast. Those pieces merged with debris from the other ships close to his position.

• • •

The Union and M87 fleets were extraordinarily successful. Most of the Thresher Warships were blasted within a second of the Union Fleets arrival. However, there were some ships in the middle of the large Thresher Formations that weren’t hit. They began activating their force fields and many of them were blasted before their fields were fully energized. But some of them managed to go to full power and began fighting back.

• • •

Jinx watched the Zombies blow a huge section of the Thresher Fleet into a massive field of debris. The first giant battleship began trying to move through the field and was hit by blasters that were still live on the huge pieces of Thresher Ships. Jinx saw there was no way for a Pental Battleship to make it through the wreckage to fire a heavy penetrator at the planet. He hit his communication panel, “Group Leader, on my mark I want all your ships to jump out of the debris field.”

“Sir, we have to remove all the active blasters to get the heavies through.”

“You’re not going to do that. Another Thresher Fleet has jumped in and is forming up to hit us. Now do as I order.”

“But Admiral, we can clean this up.”

“Jim!”

Logan sat up straight, “Yes Sir.”

“You will follow Admiral Tollervar’s orders as if they were my own; is that clear!?!”

“Yes Sir.”

Jinx pressed his panel, “Mac!”

“Yes Sir.”

“Form up the fleets into four line formation. Have them ready to jump in and fire everything they have. The coordinate is as follows and get in and get out on my mark.”

“Yes Sir.”

Jinx pressed his communicator linking him with the Zombies, Secondary fleets, and the M87 Battleships, “On my mark, the Zombies will jump out, the Seconds will jump in, and the Battleships will go in afterwards. Ready, 3,2,1, MARK!!”

The Zombies disappeared; the Secondary fleet appeared and fired everything they had. Then the Needles disappeared and the M87 Battleships appeared over the debris field, firing a massive penetrator barrage, before disappearing. The debris field appeared to explode in a massive blast that blew out into space. The fiery blast disappeared and the Battleships had a clear path to the planet. They accelerated into the lane and launched four heavy penetrators at the planet which blew up into six giant pieces that flew away from the center of the explosions into space.

Jinx saw the Thresher Support Fleet was accelerating toward the Union Fleets and he punched his communicator, “All ships, JUMP, JUMP, JUMP!!!”

The Thresher support fleet flew in at a tremendous speed and suddenly saw the hundreds of thousands of ships around the planet disappear just before the debris from the planet blew into their formations. Most of the ships survived the impacts but the shock transmitted to their hulls were so severe that thousands of the crews were injured or outright killed. The Orange Ships jumped away and came back after the shock wave from the planet’s destruction had rushed out into the planetary system.

The lead Claw was shocked at the damage and knew there was going to be a huge price paid by someone. He contacted the Major Claw and immediately saw his life was in jeopardy. The Major Claw was blaming him for the loss of ships to the planet’s debris. He knew he was going to die. However, he continued to do his duty and led the operations to save as many as possible from the massive attack. His surviving ships dropped their force fields to bring the escape pods on board. Every ship that did had a Tracker Probe move in and attach to their hull. The survivors were taken to more than eight hundred planets where major hospital facilities were located. The Union had their targets.

• • •

Jinx blew out a breath he felt like he had been holding for hours. His panel illuminated, “Jinx.”

“Yes Katy.”

“Thank you.”

Jinx smiled and nodded. The display went dark and he made a decision. He arrived back at headquarters and looked up a name in the main computer. He entered the contact number and Edward Snow answered. He saw Jinx and his nervousness was instant, “Sir, how may I help you, Sir?”

“Edward, why did you ask Katy to go out with you?”

“Sir, I’m sorry I offended you; I really didn’t mean to offend you, Sir.”

“Edward, relax; what I want from you is honesty. Why?”

“I developed a lot of respect for you during the fleet trials. I’ve learned the hard way how choosing the wrong woman can wreck your life. I felt that you deserved someone who truly loved you. I didn’t expect her to accept; but she did.”

“Was she one of your conquests?”

“No, it never got that far. She tried to contact you and found you had moved. She learned you were at a restaurant and she feared you had seen her with me. She questioned everyone in the restaurant to see if you were there the night before and discovered from the bartender that you were. She called me out and I told her what I had done.”

“Was she one of your conquests?”

“No, she wasn’t. Normally I’m successful on the first date but she gave no indication she was interested. I asked her out again but I had no chance the second night; you were the only thing on her mind.”

“Why did she go with you?”

“She told me the first night that she was frightened of getting into a relationship. Her parents had…”

“Divorced when she was six years old.”

Edward said, “That’s exactly what she said. I think she went because of that fear.” Edward paused and said, “I’m a good judge of women, Sir. I don’t think she would have gone very far with me. She was actually a challenge; that’s why I asked her out again.”

Jinx remembered what Katy had said when he had taken her call. “Thank you, Edward.”

“Don’t mention it, Sir. She’s really become something special, hasn’t she?”

“Yes, she has.”

The display went dark and Jinx sat in his quarters for several hours. Later he went to bed but sleep couldn’t find him.

• • •

Angela looked at Drey and Kragon. Dee was sitting next to Drey with her eyes closed and she waited for her to open them. She looked at the Obelisk and said, “How many planets did we get, Moe?”

“Seven hundred and forty so far; there are still some trackers that haven’t reported in.”

Drey shook his head, “Next time we won’t catch them with their force fields off.”

Angela nodded, “You’re right; however, I think you got their undivided attention.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I’m waiting to see; Dee should have an answer shortly.”

Drey looked at Kragon, “What do you think?”

“We really don’t know what we’re facing. If those planets have a similar number of ships around them, we might have a chance.”

“But…”

“We don’t know how many fleets are somewhere else going about conquering other civilizations. We just don’t have enough information.”

Drey nodded and looked at the Obelisk, “Moe, have you been able to decipher their language?”

“I have.”

“Have you been able to intercept any of their communications?”

“I hadn’t learned their language when they had ships here and we don’t have any probes at their planets at the moment.”

“Are you thinking we should send probes to them?”

“The one we sent to the planet we destroyed was not detected. That makes me believe it would be worth the risk. Even if they detected our probes, it might be a good thing.”

Drey nodded, “If they think we have their locations, they will be forced to keep ships there to defend their planets.”

“Exactly.”

Dee opened her eyes and looked at Angela, “You know what’s coming.”

“I just hope I’m wrong; I was hoping you would see it differently. Your skills are more advanced than mine.”

Dee looked at Drey, “They will come here to attack rather quickly if we don’t do something about it now.”

“Wouldn’t they have to defend their planets?”

“Whoever attacks first will have control over the battleground. If they attack first, how are we going to spare ships to go after them?”

Kragon said, “She’s right.”

“But if they leave their planets undefended, we can go and destroy them easily.”

Kragon shook his head, “They won’t need that many ships to defend their planets if they’re at battle stations waiting for us. They can burn a penetrator before it can hit their planets. It will take a large number of ships to get through their defenses and where are those ships going to come from?”

Angela looked at Drey, “If the Union was under attack, would you send our ships to attack their planets or stay and defend our citizens?”

“So M87 won’t send ships if they’re under attack?”

“Would you?”

“It might force them to break off their attack and go back to defend their planets.”

Dee sighed, “Drey, I’m certain they’ve had to face this issue in their past and have learned that if they inflict enough damage, the attacks on their planets will be stopped.”