Tag and Admiral Kosiev sat in their chairs on the Zeus’s bridge watching the feed from the passive sensor in the Central Alliance system. Tag took a drink of his tea and said, “They just keep on coming. What’s the count up to now?”
Kosiev was leaning back in his chair and had to straighten up to see his console. He took a look and leaned back again, “Right at 15,000.”
Tag whistled and said, “They’re still not forming up so they must be expecting more.”
Kosiev yawned and looked up at the ceiling and said, “Yep, they must be bringing more than I would care to manage.” Then Kosiev sat up and said, “Things have changed over the last two battles. If they had brought this many the first time; how do you think we’d be acting right now?”
“We would be freaked out of our mind,” Tag said. “We’ve learned what we can do in the last two battles. We have averaged killing ten ships for every one of ours. They would have to bring 60,000 at that ratio to break even with us. This battle will be the most we’ve had so far.”
“How do you see it breaking down?”
Tag thought a minute and said, “They must think we only have about 100 warships left. If they jump into the system with that many ships, I’m not going to waste any more. We’ll station 94 ships around Mars and when their fleet approaches Earth we’ll have them fly to the planet’s surface and turn on the screen. I don’t see anything else they can do but come in and begin their campaign against the planet.”
“Do you think they will bring all their ships in immediately?”
“Probably not; you wouldn’t either; I would have the ships spread out thru the system and search for any unpowered ships lying in ambush. What do you think they’ll do?”
Kosiev thought and said, “I agree. They will come in from all points of the compass and do a full scan of all the space from the star drive limit in to Earth orbit. That’s probably why they’re bringing so many ships. They should just englobe our system and move in together. If everything checks out, then they will bring all ships in and turn them facing away from the planet to make sure they aren’t interrupted while they attempt to drain our planetary screen.”
“Admiral, I honestly don’t know what they are going to do. I would recommend that you have the new Ultra Battleships completely out of the system programmed with multiple jump points around Earth. Since they can jump in close to the planet, they won’t have to be hidden like all the other ships. By the way, I understand that we are only building the Ultra’s now. Since they are faster than a destroyer and cruiser, it doesn’t make much sense to continue building those small ships.”
“That’s right. We’re up to 575 as we speak and their crews are training on multiple jump attack.”
Tag furrowed his brow and said, “Multiple jump what?”
Kosiev laughed and said, “You got us started thinking about it with your fleet of remote controlled ships. We jump 50 Ultra’s into the middle of the Alliance formations and they fire every weapon at any available target. Then as they start to be fired on they jump away to safety to only jump right back in behind the ships that were attacking them. Multiply that by ten and you can imagine the affect on the enemy.”
“Wow”, Tag said shaking his head. “I wish I knew what the Alliance fleet is going to do. Are our ships on the moon ready for action?”
“Yes, we have eighty launch tubes with five ships each ready for instant launch. The first four hundred ships will launch followed by 400 more every ten seconds. We’ve raised the number we’re going to have in the cavern to 4000 so all of them will be launched in about ninety seconds.” Kosiev then rubbed his chin and said, “How do we hide the other 3,000 ships if as we believe the Alliance fleet goes looking for them?”
“We can’t. What about this. What if we have the 3,000 ships not housed on the moon parked on the planet. If as we suspect the Alliance starts draining our screen and we are able to draw them in closer; then just as we go to full power on the screen, we launch 2000 ships straight out from the Asteroid Fortresses. The forts will fire their five mile wide beam and our ships will follow that beam right thru the Alliance ranks. I feel pretty certain that when that beam is fired every Alliance ship in the vicinity will be moving away from it. It should open a path beyond their ranks. Two shots and all three thousand are thru. What do you think?”
‘Sounds good, but what if the Alliance fleet doesn’t come into range of the fort’s weapons?”
“Then we launch the ships on one side of the planet and pin the fleet there between those coming from the moon, the Ultra’s jumping in and the one’s coming from the planet. It will be a work in progress. We have to let the Alliance fleet dictate what happens this time.”
“Kosiev sat up and said, “Leisure time is over. To plan those three possible maneuvers is going to take a lot of work so that every ship knows where it’s supposed to be. I’ll see you later.”
Tag waved as Kosiev called a meeting of all his admirals as he left the room. He then looked back at his consoles monitor and saw more ships jump into the Alliance system. “Ummmm, 15,800 and they’re still not forming up.” He shook his head and said to Ensign Kelly, “I’m going to grab an Ultra and jump out to Glod to see Danielle. Contact me the moment those ships start forming up into squadrons.”
“Yes sir,” Kelly said.
State Leader Sten and Headman Dgzh were sitting at a conference table with the former Ambassador to the Glod Union. The Ambassador said, “When I delivered your message to the Glod royalty about your plans to destroy their planet, they prepared to execute me but that Human Female they named Queen intervened and stopped them. She told them that if they executed everyone that told them bad news then they would never hear the important things that were critical to survival. She actually said, “You should thank the Ambassador for giving you advanced warning.” They let me and all my staff leave peacefully and assisted us in boarding our ships.”
Sten and Dgzh looked at each other and Stein said, “For such ferocious fighters, these Humans are incredibly hard to understand. I would have executed you and every other Alliance citizen in a public square.”
“That’s another thing, Leader. They broadcast over their world net that the Alliance was coming to destroy their world and any Alliance citizen that would like to leave would be given passage to the nearest Alliance base aboard civilian ships. Very few chose to leave. They don’t appear to be afraid at all. One other thing I saw on my way from the planet, they appear to have big rocks orbiting the planet in a belt around the middle.”
Sten and Dgzh both jumped out of their seats and Dgzh yelled, “They have what?”
The Ambassador looked shaken and started mumbling, “I don’t know what they were. They looked like huge rocks circling the planet.”
Dgzh grabbed his remote to his console and pushed several button on it until a picture appeared on the wall screen of the Earth with its asteroid forts circling at the equator. “Did they look like that?”
The Ambassador looked at the picture and nodded, “Exactly like that.” Stein and Dgzh looked at each other and said nothing. The Ambassador said, “What’s so serious about those rocks?”
“Ambassador, those are a Human defense system designed to put a shield around a planet. We have designed a system to drain the shield but it has never been tried in actual field conditions. I find it extraordinary that the Humans could install that system as quickly as they did. Do you happen to know when the asteroids were first put in place?”
The Ambassador searched his memory and appeared to draw a blank but then his face lit up, “I remember right after our assault of their planet thirty five rotations ago that I was standing outside and suddenly a big shadow crossed over me on a cloudless day. I couldn’t figure out what caused it but it had to be one of those things.”
Sten looked at Dgzh and asked, “Do you know how many warships the Glod have in their inventory?”
“More than 3,000, State Leader but they are standard Alliance ship types.”
“Order 6,000 of our ships to jump into the Glod system and see how many ships come out to defend the planet. Once we get a count have our ships jump back.”
Tag was in the Glod system holding his wife’s hand while they looked down on a pond where reptilian frogs were jumping ten feet in the air to catch what looked like giant gnats. “Things sure look different here,” Tag said. Danielle just smiled. Suddenly Tag’s com buzzed. Kosiev was on it and Tag heard him say, “Mr. Gardner, more than 5,000 Alliance ships are forming up in an area away from the rest of the fleet. We still have ships jumping in and the count is up to 16,300. Do you think they intend to attack us piecemeal?”
“That wouldn’t make sense. Keep an eye on those ships and let me know if they start turning on their star drives.” Kosiev nodded and signed off.
“What’s going on?” Danielle asked.
“The Alliance Fleet has 5,000 of their ships forming up away from the main body of the fleet. I just can’t believe they would jump to Earth ahead of the main body.”
Danielle thought a minute and said, “Maybe they’re not jumping to Earth. We sent the Alliance Ambassador packing three days ago. Perhaps he told them about the Asteroids and they’re coming to check it out.”
Tag thought furiously and said, “Danielle, there wouldn’t be any reason to check out the asteroids with 5,000 ships. Either they attack with the entire fleet or stay where they are.” Then it struck him, “Maybe they are trying to see if we are going to use the Glod Navy to defend the Earth. If it’s not here then this may be their first attack. He lifted his com and said, “Tgon-Gee, respond immediately!”
Tgon-Gee came on his com and said, “Yes Mr. Tag, how can I help you?”
“How many of your ships are here?”
“About 2,800; we have 800 ships being converted at your building facilities. Why do you ask?”
“Bear with me a minute, how many of the 2,800 have been converted?”
“About half of them have the new technology.”
‘I’m expecting the Alliance to jump in more than 5,000 ships to see how many ships you answer with. Can you get your ships out and have the new ships placed behind the old ones with their screens shut off. They should still look like standard Alliance warships.”
Tgon-Gee nodded and disappeared from Tag’s com. “I hope we have enough time to get this done,” Tag said. “Kosiev,” he said into his com. “How close is that group of ships to being sorted out for jump?”
“They’re encountering some difficulty, they just had 400 ships jump into the area they were assembling and they all scattered probably thinking that it was another one of our attacks. It will take them at least another hour and a half to reorganize.”
“Thanks, Admiral.” Then Tag called Tgon-Gee, “Excellency, it looks like we will have about, what’s the Alliance word for minute, on yeah, dreg, ninety dregs before they jump. Can you organize your fleet that quickly?”
“It’s being done right now. We were already in formations around the planet so it shouldn’t take more than thirty or forty dregs.”
“I might be wrong about this but I have to leave and get that Ultra Battleship out of your system; there is no way to explain that. I’m going to leave my wife and your Queen here for you to take care of.”
“It will be our honor.”
Danielle hugged Tag and kissed him, “Are we always going to be saying good-bye?”
Tag smiled and said, “That’s what makes the hellos so great. I’ll see you after the battle.”
“See that you do,” Danielle said to him as he ran from the room.
Tag’s ship jumped out of the system thirty minutes before the Alliance fleet jumped in. They formed ranks and began moving in system. Shipven Vi looked at his sensors and asked his sensor officer, “How many ships do you register on your instruments. Some of them are behind those in front but it looks like at least 3,000 or so.”
“Do you see anything unusual about their ships?”
“We’re a long way out from the planet but they look like standard ships.”
Vi turned on his com and said, “State Leader, they have approximately 3,000 ships here. They all look like standard ship types.”
Sten looked at Dgzh and said, “Jump back into our system immediately.”
The Alliance fleet disappeared from the Glod system.
Sten said, “How many ships did you say they had?”
“At their last inventory they had about 4,400 but we have on record 800 of their ships being destroyed by the Humans. That leaves 3,600. I suspect that they have those other 600 scattered among their colony worlds. Either way, the majority of their fleet is in the Glod system.”
“Then we continue as planned. If their ships were in the Human system, we would attack Glod first to try our new draining device. There’s no good reason to fight 3,000 ships when the humans only have a hundred. How long until the fleet is ready?” he asked Dgzh.
“Counting the last 400 to jump in, we only have 300 ships left to arrive to complete our roster.”
Forget the last 300, they can merge later. Get the fleet organized now; how long, Headman?”
“At least one rotation to organize and one more to assign jump coordinates then we will be ready to jump.”
“Notify the draining dreadnaughts that they need to be prepared to leave at that time.”
“Yes State leader, it will be done.”
Tag jumped in to Earth and went directly to Kosievs Bridge, “What happened?”
“The 5,000 ships jumped into the Glod system, took a ship count, and left. Now the fleet is shaking itself down in preparation to jump. Those big dreadnaughts with the machinery on board are also moving away from the planet out to the star drive limit; looks like it’s going to be show time shortly.”
Tag pressed his com and said, “Director Nicole.”
After a moment he heard, “Yes Tag, what can I do for you?”
Tag then explained to her that they were going to manipulate the screen surrounding the planet to try and draw the Alliance fleet in close to the planet. To prevent a general panic in Earth’s population, she needed to give a warning of what to expect.
Kosiev sat there and thought, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Then he knew he saw only his piece of the puzzle. This young man seemed to see all the pieces at once.
“You’re right,” Director Nicole said, “I’ll get it out immediately.”
“You might also let everyone know that we may let a few beams thru into things like the ocean or desert. Don’t be afraid if that happens.” The Director disappeared from his com.
“Well, Admiral. Would you like some popcorn? We have a few hours to waste until they come calling.”
Kosiev said, “Absolutely, and I’ll have butter on mine. I’ll be jumping out to Ross with the other Ultra Ships shortly but there’s always time for popcorn. I have no idea why I don’t weigh as much as a Glod with all the popcorn I consume. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to hide the Ultra Ship Atlanta on the Earth’s surface and keep tabs on what the Alliance is going to do. I also intend to help Colonel Taz play with the screen.”
Kosiev stopped his hand halfway to his mouth and said, “I’ve heard what you’re like when you’re trying to fool someone. I almost feel sorry for those Alliance ships. Please notice I said almost.”
They laughed and continued to eat their pop corn.
State Leader Sten and Headman Dgzh watched as their fleet sorted itself out. Sten said, “That is the largest fleet we’ve ever put together in our long history.”
“It is huge and looks invincible.”
Sten looked at him and said, “So why am I so nervous about this venture?”
Dgzh continued to look at the fleet and without moving his head said, “The Humans have been one step ahead of us every step of the way. I don’t care what the Vgrig Warleader says; I wouldn’t be surprised if the Humans turned up with a thousand ships or none. They will prove to be unpredictable whatever happens.”
“What happens to us if we lose this battle?”
Dgzh looked at him and said, “We don’t need to worry about us. If we lose 17,000 ships we probably won’t have an Alliance to worry about. This is a critical moment in our history.”
Sten watched the fleet and continued to worry.
The Vgrig Warleader looked at all his assembled ships and thought of the majesty of the moment. Now was the time for a great victory. Not only would his people grow in esteem but he can claim whatever prize he wanted. He would also have an entire planet to torture and punish for his earlier defeat. He looked forward to starting this operation. He turned in his chair and asked his communication officer “Is the fleet ready?”
“Yes it is, Warleader.”
“Open a Communication channel to all ships,” he said and waited for the light on his console to light up. After a moment it turned on and he pressed the com channel, “I want to make sure that everyone understands out plan. We will enter the Human system at the orbit of their outermost planet and begin moving in. I want every square inch of their system gone over thoroughly with our sensors to ensure there aren’t any surprises waiting for us. We will move in toward the planet and tighten our fleet formations as we advance. No one gets closer than 50,000 miles from the planet. The dreadnaughts will begin draining their screen as soon as we make sure that the system is clear of ships. We will divide our fleet in half once we arrive at the planet. Half will stay at the planet to make sure no one escapes and the other half will proceed to the jump limit to prevent anyone coming in to rescue these humans. Prepare to jump in 10 dregs.” The Warleader then leaned back in his chair and thought that he was being cautious having half the fleet at the jump limit. After his last experience, he wasn’t taking any chances. He was going to be with those at the jump limit just to make sure he would have an escape just in case things got ugly. He had seen firsthand how quickly things could go wrong. It wasn’t that he wasn’t brave; he just wasn’t stupid.
“One dreg to jump,” his ship leader informed him.
He leaned forward and thought, “What are they planning this time?” then his ship jumped.