Annihilation: A Rose Grows In Weeds (21 page)

Tag looked at Admiral Dorg and said, “You are now the overall commander of all Stars Realm Armed Forces and will report directly to me.”

Dorg started to protest but then remembered what Kosiev had said. “I doubt that I’m qualified for this position, but I will do my best.”

“Kosiev said the exact same thing when he was chosen. It might interest you to know that our SFT group has said that the best possible future for us is with you and me working together. I also agree with them.” Tag then looked at Mikado and Chen and said, “We are dividing our forces into two fleets. Each of you will command one of those fleets and will work with each other such that your two commands can smoothly work together in joint maneuvers. Admiral Mikado is second in command to Admiral Dorg and will have the responsibility of developing fleet strategy prior to any conflict to present to Admiral Dorg. Obviously, Admiral Chen will assist in the preparation of that strategy but Mikado has the accountability of producing the plan. Both of you will call Cade McAllister and discuss the last battle with the intent of developing an answer to the Plant’s new screens, piloted missile, and frequency generating ships. You may leave now and begin that process. I also expect an organization chart of the command structure for each of your fleets of 20,000 ships turned in to Admiral Dorg for his approval within forty eight hours.” The two officers looked at each other then stood, saluted Tag and hurriedly left the room.

“Tgon-Gee, your race has not presented an officer to have a general command position of one of our fleets. I’m concerned that we may be overlooking someone that could help us. Is there a general command officer you would like to suggest to the group?”

Tgon-Gee looked around the room and said, “Unfortunately, my race has always been aggressive and rewarded those commanders that had individual success over group coordination. We are ill prepared to lead large numbers. Our forces will be more successful if commanded by someone that can get groups to work together. However, one of our naval officers has shown an aptitude to have the skills you want.”

“Who is that?” Tag asked.

“He is graduating from the fleet academy in fifteen days. His instructors have ranked him number one in his class even ahead of his human classmates. You actually know him, Mr. Gardner.”

Tag raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side, “When have we met?”

Tgon-Gee said, “He was the warrior that our Queen gave the choice during her challenge on Glod. He chose her to rule our people.”

Tag’s face showed his amazement. “He chose to enter the academy when he was already one of your planet’s greatest hero’s.”

“He is currently our most loved hero and yes, he did. He felt he was not qualified to lead in the new navy. He wanted to prepare himself to offer the most he could to serve our Queen. It appears he tried very hard and was successful. Our people still sing about his action during the challenge and he could have any position he wanted on Glod but he wanted to fight for our Queen and felt the navy was the best way. He was a dreadnaught commander during the conflict with the Alliance but said he knew he was not qualified to fight on an equal footing with humans. He came to the academy to improve his skills.”

“Did he get into any fights during his training?” Dorg asked knowing how the Glod loved a fight.

Tgon-Gee looked at Dorg and after a slight pause said, “Who, other than Mr. Gardner, would take on a Glod Martial Arts Champion? Would you?”

Dorg smiled and said, “Point well taken.”

While Dorg and Tgon-Gee were addressing each other Tag closed his eyes and thought, “Danielle.”

“Yes Dear.” She replied in his mind.

“The Glod that chose you during the challenge on Glod is graduating from the fleet academy in fifteen days. What did you sense about him during the challenge?”

“Really, I’m not surprised. I could see that he was looking for meaning in his life during that conflict. He’s much more than he appears, Tag. His mind is as sharp as his fighting skills.”

“Thanks, Danielle.”

Tag opened his eyes and said, “What is his name?”

Tgon-Gee said, “Ron-Dar.”

“He will report to my flagship immediately after graduation and assume command of my ship. My ship will be ready in twenty two days and she will be called Retribution. Notify Ron-Dar of his new assignment.”

Admiral Dorg looked at Tgon-Gee and they both knew that whoever commanded Retribution would be on a promotion fast track. Tgon-Gee felt his pride grow for the new ships captain coming from his race. “I’ll notify him immediately,” Dorg said.

Terl looked at Tag and said, “I have six officers that I think fleet academy will help to develop the skills they need to be fleet commanders. I think Ron-Dar had a good idea. Perhaps all of our future Admirals should go thru the Academy.”

Tag looked at them and said, “It would certainly cause a lot of our current captains to attend. Are we agreed that any future Admirals will come from academy graduates?” Everyone in the room nodded. “That’s how we will do it from now on and the Queen will make that part of her decrees. We are also stopping the production of Megaships until we can agree on whether or not they can be modified to handle the new plant technology. We also need to train and develop our existing crews to work together. Throwing thousands of ships into fleets just prevents them from learning ship coordination. Our fleets will be built with squadrons that have trained together and know how to work together. We will build ships as we have crews graduating to man them. The production facilities will be used to manufacture the armaments our ships need to fight. Admiral Dorg, our highest priority is to develop new weapons to counteract the plants new ships and missiles. Please plan to meet with me in forty eight hours with your junior officers to plan where we go from here.” Tag stood and everyone stood with him.

Dorg said, “Yes Mr. Gardner, I’ll see you in two rotations.” After Tag had left, Dorg turned to Tgon-Gee and said, “What do you think about all this.”

Tgon-Gee said, “Remember, you always want to be on Death Incarnates side in any struggle. Now he’s back and our future is better for it.” Dorg just stood and wondered what would happen next.

Admirals Mikado and Chen had left Cade McAllister’s office and left instructions as to the need for new weapon development and scheduled a return visit with the top command staff in five days. That was twelve hours earlier and now Cade was viewing videos of the new Algean ships with one of his top engineers, Anita Lea. They watched as the primaries went thru three screens but were stopped short of penetrating the inner two. “They have really strengthened their screens in these new ships,” Cade commented.

“Yes, they have but they are actually at a bigger risk than their old Heavy ships,” Anita responded.

“Why do you think that?”

“They’re not as big and more of their surface is covered in missile and beam ports which require their magazines to be close together on the surface. One hit and the whole thing should go up.”

They both thought in silence and then Cade said, “So we don’t have to have hornets hitting the ship in multiple locations to knock it out of action.”

“It sure looks that way,” Anita said. “One hit on one of those missile ports should do it, especially since they’re anti-matter. The anti-matter missiles are eight times larger than their old ones because of the addition of two more engines and a pilot. They almost qualify to be a ship except for lacking multiple reactors and screens. The majority of the hull space of the smaller new Algean ships surface is covered with their launching ports.”

“Let’s think about this. The focused primary only made it thru three of the five screens at 300 miles. We had to close to 100 miles to make it thru all five, right.” Anita looked at the data and nodded. “We know what the energy of the primary is at 100 miles which made it thru all five screens but even though it is a focused beam, it’s still more than 1,500 feet wide. I wonder what would the energy would be if we condensed a full primary beam to a beam two feet wide.” Cade said. Both of them grabbed their calculators and began punching numbers.

“Two hundred and sixty miles,” they both said simultaneously.

“Ok, Ok, let’s not get excited yet. What good would a two foot beam do?”

Anita thought for a moment and said, “What if it is set to hit and move thirty feet before it ends?”

They both jumped up and went back to the video and stopped one of the ships and began measuring the distance between missile ports. Cade looked at the engineer and said, “Between forty and fifty feet,” Cade said

“Give or take a few feet; how much range would we give up on the beam to be able to move it 70 feet before it played out?” Anita asked.

“Well, we would have to go to a three foot beam to make it cut that far, and the energy would be the same at,” he paused while he calculated, “228 miles.”

Cade thought for a moment and then asked, “How fast is this new missile? It caught our ships when they were 100 miles out.”

Anita looked at the video and measured the velocity of the missile and then said, “It looks like it is faster than our top speed but it runs out of energy after 300 miles. Those three engines have a huge power to weight ratio but they can only sustain that speed for a limited distance due to their limited energy supply; it’s too small to carry multiple reactors. You also have to factor in that the Plants fired their missiles when our ships were 300 miles out and they didn’t start hitting our ships until they were 100 miles out.”

“Are you saying that if we attack them from further out than 200 miles they won’t catch our ships?”

“You’re looking at the same data I am. Some of Admiral Smiths ships were destroyed right at the 300 mile mark but forty% of those missiles had stopped and run out of energy at 280 miles. I think that we have their top speed in these videos so with a 100 mile head start, they won’t catch our fleet.”

Cade looked at the video again and said, “What’s to prevent them from firing their missiles at our ships as soon as they get within 300 miles; that way in order for us to get to 200 miles to attack, their missiles will be less than 100 miles from our ships when they reach firing range? They could also have the missiles flying 100 miles in front of their formations.”

“That’s true but remember that they only have a finite amount of fuel and if they use it flying in front of the main fleet, then they reduce the distance they can fly at full speed to chase our ships. It’s a tradeoff. We also need to look at our penetrators; they are slower than the new missiles.”

Both of them continued to look at the video and then Cade said, “We’re using the wrong type of ship for this new plant fleet.” Anita looked at him and shrugged and Cade continued, “Let’s look at what we know. First, hornets are not needed to destroy the new ships, all we need do is hit its surface on a missile port or beam port. Second, our penetrators are slower than their anti-matter missiles and are not faster than their new ships. Third, we have to use millions of armaments to kill their ships sometimes using 100 for a single ship. And lastly, our screens cannot handle multiple anti-matter hits. Is that about right?”

“Those are the most obvious problems,” she said.

“Cade smiled at her and said, “Well that shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” and they both laughed and called in their team.

After all twenty engineers on Cade’s developmental force arrived; he explained what he thought they should do.

The engineers pondered a moment and one said, “How do we target them and what will we need to do to make the current cells operate with the smaller beam?”

Cade rubbed his forehead and then said, “We make it happen automatically. The cells will use its leakage to sense any ship that doesn’t have a Coronado screen and when it gets inside 228 miles the cells will target it and fire the condensed beam that will then move seventy feet along the target’s surface.”

“Will every cell on the surface of the hull target and fire at the same target?”

“You keep asking me tough questions,” Cade answered.

“What about this,” the Anita said. “We program every cell on the hull with a number designation from one to fifty. All cells designated as number one will fire together after each of them designate a target, then number two will fire and they will be programmed to ignore the targets designated by number one; then three will fire ignoring number two’s target and so forth until it gets back to one; while this is happening all the cells not being fired can be used for the primaries, screens, or sensors.”

“How many cells will be needed to produce the beam you’re talking about?” one of the junior engineers asked.

“Our calculations indicate that fifteen could do it. There are seventy five cells along the length of the mega ships arranged in ten rows around the hull. That would make 50 beams available for firing. They could be fired for up to three seconds and recharged every two seconds.” Cade answered.

Anita looked at the video again and said, “I notice that the missiles do not have a screen to protect them. What is the top speed of our new hornets?”

John Nichlos who had designed the new hornets said, “They are twice as fast as the penetrators.”