Annihilation: A Rose Grows In Weeds (30 page)

T
he Stars Realm Command Team along with Tgon-Gee, Terl, Misty Nicole, Sten, Headman Dgzh, Cade McAllister, Danielle, Rose, Sten, and Tag sat around a large conference table in Castle Gardner’s meeting room. The room had displays that covered most of the walls along with an active universal map. The room was circular so any display could be seen by all. Tag pulled a photo the two new penetrators that had been developed and then said, “Cade, explain how these two new weapons actually perform.”

Cade stood and used a laser pointer to indicate the first display, “This penetrator is designed for ship to ship conflict. It has an armored skin of Coronado Power Cells that are charged to the maximum. It can accelerate faster than anything we’ve ever created or seen and it will also penetrate any screen we’ve ever observed, even ours.” Everyone immediately sat straighter in their chairs; this was an important development. “Once its sensors detect immediate impact, the entire screen around the penetrator will focus directly in front and burn a hole thru any screen it impacts. Once the penetrator hits anything solid, then it will release all of its stored energy into a single blast. We have measured the diameter of that blast to be five miles.” Cade faced the group, “Nothing can out run it, no screen can stop it, and anything it hits will be destroyed. Even the ships that are twenty miles long will not work if a five mile wide hole is blown into it. This is the ultimate ship killing weapon.”

“Is there anything that can stop it?” Dorg asked.

“An anti-matter hit will stop it, however, it is programmed to avoid their missiles and it will blow past anything in its path faster than they can react. Theoretically, if you can surround your ship with antimatter missiles so that there are no gaps smaller than the width of this penetrator, then you might be safe. However, if you do that, then the blast will then lead to a chain reaction of explosions of all the other missiles which will probably destroy the ship in the middle.”

Tag stood and said, “The second penetrator is just like this one except we can jump it to any coordinates programmed in using the null star drive.” Everyone gave a start at this statement. “We have learned that if you use the null drive to jump into a system, it will only read the coordinates of the place it arrived and not the null coordinates. However, if you use it to jump out of the system, then the null coordinates will be read running the risk of letting the Plants learn of the null star drive system. These penetrators, however, will only be jumping in, not out.”

Terl said, “Why do we even need to risk a ship; just jump enough of these in system to destroy their ships.”

Tag looked at Cade and nodded; Cade stood and said, “Picture in your mind what would happen if we jumped these penetrators into the Plant fleet. The fleet would scatter and we don’t have a system big enough to target millions of ships rushing out of a system on different trajectories and get their coordinates into a single missile for each escaping ship. These penetrators have a 1,200 mile limit. Even with their acceleration, ships would block the penetrator’s sensors if they were bunched and a large number would be able to escape. The Megaships could use their systems to target ships that were escaping.”

Tag remained in his chair and said, “It really doesn’t matter about this particular penetrator because we are probably not going to use it in our first battle at the planet the Plants have been harvesting.”

Tgon-Gee said, “How could you attack them without using it? It’s suicide to hit them head on if you can’t use the null star drive to escape.”

Tag sat in his chair and listened to the meeting disintegrate into the various participants all giving their opinion about the best use of the new penetrators. In his mind he could see Admiral Kosiev leaning back in his chair, eating his popcorn, and saying to him, “Now is when you tell them how it’s going to be.” Tag smiled and once more missed his old friend; then he reached under his chair and grabbed his bag of popcorn and began eating a few kernels. Dorg and Mikado saw him eating and stopped talking. They knew him well enough to know that he had something that would make a huge impact. Chen then saw them eating popcorn and he also sat back and quit talking. Then one by one, everyone noticed the popcorn and the room became silent.

Dorg chewed his popcorn and after a few minutes of silence he said, “Oh how I miss Kosiev.”

Tag stood and said, “He’s still here with us. We’re not going to use the new star drive penetrator for two reasons; first, I want to have the biggest impact possible when we do use them; and second, we won’t have enough manufactured by the time the Plants finish harvesting the planet. I have asked Cade to use all of the facilities to produce the ship-to-ship penetrator so we can have enough in time for the first battle.” Tag looked around the room and made sure everyone was listening to him. “We are also going to go into the harvesting system with only half of our megaships.” That statement started the room buzzing but Tag held up his hand and the room became quiet again. “We are going to use tactics that we used to defeat the Alliance. We are not going to reveal our numbers to the Algeans. They know we have 40,000 ships so 50,000 won’t be a huge surprise to them. They cannot stand up to our fleet with the new penetrator. We can carry fifty of them on each megaship and that means we will have two million of them in our fleet. Remember, each one of them will destroy any ship it hits. We can enter the system and go after the fleet that’s there in the system then choose our route out and fight our way to the jump point. The Plants might be able to jump a fleet in on us but the penetrators will clear us a path out. We will then immediately jump to the Dremels system.”

Dorg said, “Now I understand. The Dremels population has left for the former planet of the Grendap so no civilians are endangered by leading them there. They already know about our forts there so they would be planning to attack there as soon as their fleet was free from harvesting operations.”

Mikado leaned forward and said, “And since you hurt them in the harvesting system, they will bring the biggest fleet possible to the Dremels’ system setting up the use of the new jump penetrator.”

Tag nodded and said, “I also suspect that they will take some time to organize their response which will give us more time to manufacture the new penetrators. When we use them, we will jump them straight to the Dremels’ system and not go through multiple galaxies. We will stockpile all we have in one location and jump them from there.”

Danielle watched Tag lead the meeting and it reminded Danielle of all the reasons why she had fallen in love with him. She sat and remained quiet during the meeting sharing her thoughts with Rose. “He’s doing a great job, isn’t he,” she thought to Rose.

“Yes he is, Mom. These people have learned to trust him and he really doesn’t know his own importance to us. He’s not humble but he isn’t self important. I’ve learned a lot from him.”

“As have I, little one.” Then Danielle had a thought, “Rose, can we handle the Plant’s response?”

Rose was quiet and then thought, “Our ships can escape if it gets too bad. Now that we can destroy the frequency ships, everyone should be able to survive when they attack at Dremel.”

Danielle was very quiet and then thought, “What about at the planet they are harvesting. Is it going to be that bad,”

“Yes Mom.”

“Are you going to tell your father?”

“He already knows at some level but I still won’t tell him. Mom, we can’t avoid them and win. We have to reduce their ship counts and by avoiding every battle that the Plants use huge numbers will only give them more time to build better weapons to use against us.”

“Are you going to suggest anything that might help them?” Danielle asked.

“No, but you are.” Then Rose shared a thought with Danielle.

Danielle said, “I have an idea that the group might consider.”

The room was silent; then Tag said, “What it that, Your Majesty?”

“If those missiles can release all of its energy at one time, can the mobile forts do the same thing?”

The room was quiet as everyone thought about why she would ask that question. Then Tag said, “I believe we can program them to do that; why would we want to do that?”

“What if things turned bad and we were forced to jump out. What would those forts do if they were flown into the Plants fleet and detonated? How big of an explosion would they make? Also, if they appeared to be escaping, wouldn’t the Plants attack them with large numbers?”

Tag was quiet and then turned to Cade. “What about it. Does what she’s suggesting have any merit?”

Cade sat there running calculations on his console and then he looked up shaking his head and said, “If we flew the 16 forts around the Dremels Planet half way out to the jump limit and detonated them, everything within 100,000 miles of each of those forts would be destroyed.”

Tag sat down stunned, “How can that be?”

Cade said, “Remember, those 16 forts have the ninety foot power cells and it takes more than two weeks close to a star to fully charge them. Releasing all that energy at once would be similar to a small nova; the blast wave would be devastating.”

“What about the crews manning the forts?” Misty asked.

“That’s actually the simple part,” Cade answered. “We place a transport on the fort with the null star drive to escape. When the star drive is activated, the fort detonates five seconds later. The resulting blast will eliminate the null drives coordinates so the Plants won’t be able to read them.”

Tag looked at Danielle and said, “What a great idea. Even if things don’t go bad, we will use these forts for that purpose. What better use could we use them except to reduce the Plants fleets. I think we can now break off and discuss this among ourselves and see if there is anything else we can think to do. We’ll get back together in two hours, or drags for those speaking Alliance.”

Tag looked at Danielle and thought to her, “Tell Rose I said to thank her for that idea.”

Danielle furrowed her brow and thought back, “How did you know that?”

Tag looked at the woman he loved and thought, “Because thinking of ways to take life is foreign to you; you always find ways to save life.”

Rose sheepishly thought to Tag, “Caught again. You have to admit, it is a good idea.”

Tag laughed and thought back, “Keep them coming, Rose; keep them coming.”

The Algean Fleet Leader was discussing the completion of the harvest and the plans to invade the recently discovered system suspected of being the Strangers Home System with the Elders. There were only ten rotations left and most of the final 900 harvesting ships were full and ready for departure. He was beginning to believe that the Strangers were not going to interfere with their final harvest and that he had just been nervous. He keyed his console and said, “I was worried about the Strangers attacking again but it appears that we will finish with no interruptions.”

The Eldest Leader said, “What plans have you decided to use to attack the Stranger’s System and how long before you leave to attack them?”

“We will finish here in ten rotations and we will then organize the three fleets and go directly to their system.”

“Will you need more ships?”

“No, Eldest, they ran from our combined fleets last time and we should have enough ships to defeat them.”

Suddenly the Fleet Leader’s sensor tool interrupted him by yelling, “Thousands of Stranger ships have just jumped in the system and are moving in toward the planet.”

The Fleet Leader looked at his display and saw thousands of the white ships lined up and moving inside the jump limit toward his massed fleet. He had moved most of his ships close to the planet to protect the harvesters from the hit and run tactics the Strangers had been using at the jump limit. He had left two bands of anti-matter missiles between his fleet and the jump limit and those missiles were now turning on their engines and began targeting the incoming ships. The Eldest looked at the Fleet Leader and said, “Are you able to handle this attack?”

“They are bringing in the same number of ships they used in the last attack, so I believe we should have enough unless they have new technology. It might be a good idea to have another fleet ready to jump in behind them to prevent their escape.”

The Eldest looked away from the display and said, “Order another fleet to the system.” He then looked back and said, “They will arrive quickly to support you.”

The Fleet Leader nodded and turned off his display. He looked at his console and saw on his display that the anti-matter missiles were waiting for the incoming fleet to reach 300 miles from their position. There were 30 million missiles waiting for the Strangers to come into range and he ordered his fleet to begin moving to intercept the Strangers. Suddenly, 2000 huge ships jumped in behind the line of Stranger’s ships, accelerated to just in front of the incoming ships and then turned and accelerated back to the jump limit and disappeared. “What was that about?” he wondered.

Tag watched his display as the transports accelerated to his formation and released their full load of hornets. Each one of those transports carried more than 30,000 hornets that were ejected out of their pulse cannons at tremendous velocity. The 60 million hornets leaped ahead of the Stars Realm fleet and moved toward the band of waiting anti-matter missiles. “Maintain five thousand mile separation from the hornets,” Tag said over the general fleet frequency. The SR Fleet slowed and allowed the hornets to move 5,000 miles in front of them and the fleet accelerated and matched the hornet’s velocity. Once the hornet’s sensors began detecting the anti-matter missiles, they turned on their thrusters and accelerated into their ranks. As the hornets designated the front ranks of the Plant missiles the remainder flew above and below those that were targeted. Five thousand miles in front of the SR Fleet, anti-matter missiles began exploding.