Kosiev contacted Tag and brought him up to date on what was being planned. Tag was at home with Danielle and the baby and he was concerned about the upcoming conflict. “Admiral, your fleet is going to be attacked by numbers that are almost unthinkable. Why do you want to start this conflict early?”
“Mr. Gardner, this is going to be a war of attrition on a monumental scale. Once we take a stand and stake out a position, then you’re right, it is going to be a huge battle. Our thinking is that we would rather start this at a place where a planetary population is not at stake. If we’re pushed out, then we take another position away from the Dremel; the longer they stay hidden from the Plants, the better their chance of survival. It will also give us time to get the transports for their population to move.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we have more Megaships in our arsenal?”
Kosiev looked at Tag and then said, “What if the Megaships aren’t enough. What if they can’t handle the Plants weapons? We need to know before we continue to throw all our development into them. We have some new tools that we hope will keep them at arm’s length but it may be that smaller ships equipped with these weapons are the way to go. We need to find out.”
Tag thought a minute and wished he had a bag of popcorn, “You’re right. We can always jump out and work on new weapons. Would it be a problem if I came to the party?”
“Absolutely not, Admiral Mikado would appreciate the help.”
“Admiral Mikado?”
“He is the leader of this excursion. It is his plans that we are following. He is also the one that came up with the new long range weapons we’ll be deploying in the coming battle.”
“I’ll take a pass then; I want him to be focused and not worried about my presence.”
Kosiev looked at Tag with a degree of amazement on his face, “You never cease to amaze me at your insight. I have to agree with you. He would defer to you and he needs to be the one making the decisions.”
“That doesn’t mean I won’t be watching,” Tag thought. “Keep me updated, Admiral.”
“I will Mr. Gardner.”
“Does that mean what I think it does?” Tag heard in his mind.
“Atlas, you’ve been snooping.”
“I always snoop so get used to it; am I right?”
“Yes you are. Would you like to go check out the planet before our fleet arrives?”
“I think that would be a good idea. When do you want to go?”
“After the baby is asleep; I’ll go tell Danielle now.”
Atlas and Tag were parked on the third moon of the Pydres Planet watching the ships that were harvesting the planet. “Atlas those are huge ships. They have to be 20 miles long or longer. They also look like they’re fully armed with beam and missile ports.”
“They are and they’re actually 23 miles 856 feet long. There are about 3,000 of them in place around the planet; most of the others are used as transports to bring the spoils from the planet to them.”
“How many plant warriors are there on the planet?”
“More than 3 million.”
“Atlas, do we have a chance against these creatures?”
“I don’t know but if you don’t try then they will someday be knocking on your door. You don’t want to have to face multiple galaxies of them. My masters used a virus but it also killed all the life in the galaxy of the creatures and eventually led to their death. They could have defeated them conventionally with their ships but weren’t willing to put forth the effort and time necessary to do it.”
“You sound somewhat bitter, Atlas. Aren’t you saying the same thing to me now? We have to be willing to make the effort.”
“I guess I am. They would still be here if not for their laziness and I would not have been left alone those sixty five million years.”
“Atlas, I’ve never said anything but your master looked very much in shape and form like Humans. Is that just a coincidence?”
“No, my master knew he was dying and that so were all the other Alfont. He seeded your planet with DNA in some of the higher life forms. You and your people are his descendents and I hope you don’t make the same mistake. I believe that most of the intelligent life in your galaxy is a product of my masters DNA seeding.”
Tag thought a moment and said, “Is that why all of our members are oxygen breathers?”
“Probably, my masters were. If you had not asked me about what caused my master’s death, I would have probably not even thought about the Plants. I was just rusty from inactivity. Your new alliance has the opportunity to face these creatures and try to end their savagery. Those poor Pydres huddled on the southern continent don’t stand a chance.”
“Atlas, what Pydres are you talking about.”
“There are about one and a half million of them hiding since the plants invaded. They fled from the cities and went out into the wild lands. I thought you knew about them and that that was why you were coming here.”
“No Atlas, we didn’t know there were any survivors. Will you connect me with Admiral Kosiev?” The display in front of him came on with Kosiev on it.
“Mr. Gardner, can you please explain how you’re able to bypass my communications officer and go straight to my com. He’s understandably a little puzzled by how you do it.”
“I’ll send him a sympathy card but in the mean time I have some information that we need to act on quickly.”
Kosiev raised his eyebrows and said, “Does it relate to our upcoming plans?”
“Yes it does. There are between one and two million Pydres survivors hiding on the southern continent attempting to avoid being eaten.”
Kosiev looked at Tag with an intent gaze and then pushed a privacy screen around his com. “This has something to do with that ship that brought you to us after the remote fleet destruction doesn’t it?”
Tag looked at his long time friend and was uncertain of what to say. “Yes it is Admiral.” Atlas said. “My name is Atlas and I am what you would call an Alfont ship. Tag is unwilling to reveal my existence to anyone because of the tumultuous effect it would have. I am by your standard intelligent but I am a construct. We are currently on the third moon looking down on the Pydres Planet and there is actually about one point three million Pydres’ hiding on the southern continent. A lot of them are not in great shape but they are surviving until the plants turn their attention to that land mass.”
Kosiev sat there stunned and while he was digesting this revelation, Tag said, “Admiral, Atlas will not take part in the war between the SR and the Algeans. He believes that it would be a mistake to introduce his technology to a people not ready to handle it. I happen to agree with him. He would even allow us to be defeated before he intervened. He does allow me to travel with him occasionally and he has insights that have helped me.”
“That’s how you communicate with your wife too,” Kosiev said. “I’ve wondered about that. Mr. Gardner and Atlas, I will not reveal you existence to anyone. I give you my word as an officer of the Stars Realm. What you have done is remove a tremendous amount of suspicion that has plagued me since I’ve seen the unexplainable things you’ve done. I also guess the force field and weapon you used on Ross are by products of this also. I don’t care for an explanation; I’m just glad you’re on our side Atlas and you too Mr. Gardner.”
“Admiral, now that you know, I insist that you call me Tag. You have been not only my confederate but also my friend throughout this changing time. Take your titles and shove them; Call me Tag.”
“It would seem funny if you called me Mr. Atlas, Admiral.”
“Kosiev grinned and said, “Only on private communications. You can call me Alex.”
Tag said, “I never knew your first name, Alex.”
I actually never hear it. I’m unmarried and have no family except for my crew so I never hear my first name. It actually sounds strange to me.”
“Alex, it’s a pleasure meeting you,” Atlas said.
“Likewise, now what do you two think about your discovery.”
Tag looked frustrated then said, “I really don’t know. In an ideal world we would just kick the groad out of the Plants then transport the remaining Pydres to Ross. However, I don’t think we could get the process started before the intense fighting began again with numbers that would overwhelm any unarmed transports.”
“Could we use the Megas to lift them out?” Kosiev asked.
“We don’t have enough to do it. Each one could only handle 1,000 Pydres if they took nothing with them. That would mean we would need 4,200 trips to move them all and what would prevent the Plants from following that many jump lines back to our galaxy. Unfortunately, we can’t wait. The plants have come close to completing their harvest of the northern continent and will be moving on the south quickly.”
“Tag, ask Danielle how to do it,” Atlas said.
“Danielle,” Tag thought.
“Hi, Love.”
“Pick up your com. It’s got a live call on it but Atlas didn’t want to beep it and wake the baby.”
Danielle joined them on the display. “Danielle, we have a real problem on the Pydres planet.” Tag then explained what they had discovered.
“So you don’t know how to get them out if we’re over whelmed; is that the issue.”
Kosiev said, “I guess that cuts to the meat of the problem. Before we knew about them we would just withdraw if the Algeans were getting the better of us. Now if we do we leave those survivors to die.”
Danielle thought for a moment then asked, “What would you do with the Asteroid forts if you withdraw?”
Kosiev gave a start and said, “We would jump them out of the system back to our space.”
Danielle then asked, “Well if you can jump those asteroids out of the system; can’t you land transports on their surface that would be under the forts screens for protection as they leave?”
Tag and Kosiev looked at each other and finally Tag said, “Thank you, Darling; you have helped us a great deal.”
“Don’t mention it, good night.”
Kosiev shook his head and said, “She is amazing. Each fort would have to hold 150,000 to get them all off. Let me see; they are about sixty miles in diameter so they should be able to have that many. We will have to create an environmental screen to hold atmosphere but we should be able to do that under the forts screen. The main problem will be getting that many colonists to the forts from the surface.”
“I think I have an answer for that,” Tag said.
Atlas said, “Well let’s hear it.”
“The Cainth have military transports that can carry 20,000 troops and all their hardware. They are huge and we can bring in eight of them when the marines land and park them on the southern continent. Each of them can hold 60,000 if there’s no military hardware. If things get dicey, then each of them will make two trips to one fort and the population is lifted. Matter of fact, the second lift will just remain on the transport so the environmental field won’t be necessary for them.”
Kosiev said, “Why not just bring in sixteen and lift them in one lift. We might not have time if things go bad quickly. Also, once they jump into the gamma galaxy, the transports and the forts will all jump in different directions to throw off any attempt by the Plants to track their destination.”
Tag said, “Make it happen, Alex. We need to move on this quickly.”
The leaders of the Algeans stood in the rich golden soil on their home world. They had just learned about the strange ships that had appeared at one of the food bearing planets that they were harvesting and destroyed a number of their ships. The oldest leader said, “They actually only destroyed one of our ships. The rest were lost when they shot one of our power missiles and the chain reaction destroyed the other ships.”
“We are also missing one of our explorers. They probably killed that one too,” another leader said.
“How could they have destroyed the explorer before it could have sent a warning about their existence?” one of the younger leaders asked. “One of their ships also took a direct hit by one of the power missiles and survived it. It had also been outrunning it until it suddenly slowed just before impact.”
The group was silent. Finally the Elder said, “I wonder if it deliberately allowed itself to be hit to see if it would survive. I almost believe that they were attempting to determine our weapon capabilities.”
“What do we do about it?”
“We change the way we fire our missiles. No power missile may be closer than 50 geds from each other. We will also launch them from a longer range so that even if they hit them our ships won’t be harmed. We also notify the fifth fleet to be prepared to jump at the first sign of these ships. We need to know who they are and where they are; it could be another valuable food source. Make sure we track their line of departure.” The group buried their feet deeper in the rich soil and absorbed the wonderful nutrients that only existed on their home world.