Escape to Earth-Living Legends (30 page)

He killed six more ships as he blew through the ships ahead of him; one of them blew up when the missiles chasing him couldn’t turn fast enough and hit the huge warship’s hull. The warship went up in a massive blast and another disruption filled the void. He turned toward another ship and saw a hundred missiles bearing down on him from straight ahead. He ducked into the barrier for an instant and they blew past him. He came out of the barrier and turned between six brown colored ships and his six disruptors locked on one each and cut them in half.

A missile hit his force field from the rear and he cursed as he entered the barrier. He shook his head and was thankful it was only one missile. He fought to slow his heart rate and then came out of the barrier behind an Attack Pod and shot the ten missiles into dust that were about to hit it from the rear. The disruptors swiveled at high speed and killed four more warships and Sam shook his head seeing on his tactical visor that the Alliance Fleets had barely worked their way inside the edge of the giant Legend formation. He winced as a Battle Pod exploded a mile to his left when fifty missiles managed to hit it. He whipped his ship around and went after the Legend ships that had killed the pod and saw a hundred missiles fail to make the turn with him. This was insane. There was no way to track everything. “Wolfie, start firing every disruptor around the ship. Keep them firing and aim for missiles first, ships second.”

“If the disruptors are fired continuously, there won’t be any aiming.”

“I don’t care. Start firing!” Sam saw the disruptors start swiveling and firing. He forgot about missiles and just flew his ship into the giant enemy formation and enemy ships began exploding on every side as he twisted and dodged among them. Soon, others saw him and began following his example. The destruction took on an unbelievable intensity and soon, the void disruption was so large, a huge section of the battle was forced out of the void and into normal space.

• • •

Talel watched massive numbers of Legend Tools being forced out of the void and he spoke calmly into his communicator, “All even numbered fleets will enter normal space and destroy enemy ships. Odd numbered ships will continue the attack in the void.”

Talel looked at the action taking place inside the giant enemy formation and saw Sam’s ship moving through the enemy ships continuously firing his disruptors. They shot down the missiles moving in on him and cut the ships apart along his path. Talel shook his head and said, “All ships in the void will move out of the enemy formation and reform.” The Alliance Ships entered the barrier and moved back into formation outside edges of the enemy formation. “All ships will continuously fire their forward disruptors as you move forward together. Use your rear disruptors to fire at any ships or missiles that move in behind you. Talel gave the fleets time for individual ships to move apart so that there were no gaps in their disruptor’s coverage but still slightly overlapped. The tight ranks of the oncoming enemy formation was now surrounded by a huge globe composed of billions of evenly spaced Alliance Warships. Talel stared at the formation and said, “Commence attack now!”

The huge sphere of Alliance Warships began moving forward and the destruction was incredible. Soon, there was no way for the Alliance Warships to get through the massive void disruption that surround the enemy ships in front of them. The massive disruption extended beyond scanner range and it completely enclosed the Legends’ Tools. The surviving enemy ships were trapped inside a massive disruption in the void and had no way to break out of it. They were completely surrounded and no matter which direction they tried to escape, the disruption threw them back into the center. Even turning off their stardrives would force their ships into the walls of the disruption and the ships would explode.

Talel shook his head. He quickly yelled, “All ships still in the void, move into normal space and attack any enemy ships you encounter!”

The Tools that were thrown out of the void by the massive disruptions in it couldn’t use their stardrives. The void under them was too disrupted for them to operate. They were trapped in normal space and now massive numbers of enemy ships came roaring out of the void and began attacking. The battle could have gone on for weeks but Talel saw a massive wave of silver colored ships moving toward him along a massive front. More than a billion Silver Ships rushed into the surviving enemy warships and washed over them. After it passed, there was nothing left behind it but a massive debris field.

“That was an incredible idea to lock those ships up inside a void disruption.”

“Actually, that was something that I didn’t anticipate, Piper. Besides, the disruption will eventually fade and they’ll be free.”

There was a long pause and Talel heard Piper say, “You don’t know very much about void disruptions, do you?”

“I’m not sure what you mean?”

“With the power of the explosions that formed it, that disruption will be there six years from now. The crews on those ships will resort to cannibalism long before that disruption fades.”

“That’s a terrible way to die.”

“I don’t disagree and there’s nothing we can do about it now. They are beyond our help. I suspect that most of them will just crash their ships into the walls of the disruption eventually.”

Talel shook his head, “No warrior should have to face that.”

“You can’t blame yourself. How many ships did you lose before you walled them in?”

“More than a hundred thousand.”

“You saved more than ten times that number by doing it. Be thankful and move on.”

Talel lifted his communicator, “All ships return to their assigned positions. All ships return to their assigned positions.” Talel watched the massive number of fleets start disappearing as they skipped out. He remained just outside the giant disruption and said a prayer for the doomed sailors. They were forced to follow the will of their masters, who weren’t there to defend them when they needed it most. He looked at the disruption and shook his head, “May you find peace.” He activated the light drive and arrived at the Goran’s Capital an instant later. He went to the High Leader and begged for forgiveness for what he had inadvertently done to his enemies.

“You will carry this weight and know that it had to be done, Warrior. You saved your own and for that, you need not ask for forgiveness. It gladdens my heart to know that yours is not hard.”

Talel lowered his head and the High Leader blessed him.

• • •

Katy’s fleets came skipping in and she was finally able to relax. She had lost more than ten thousand ships but the attack had to be seen as a victory. She worked for a week getting the numbers rebalanced and sent them to be rearmed and provisioned. The next order left her speechless.

“You want me to do what?”

“Take your fleets into the void and I want it disrupted around our Solar System.”

“That will make it unusable for a years.”

“Katy, we no longer need it; we have the Light Drive.”

“But…”

“Katy, we have to meet them out from the planet and kill as many as possible. Where are our weapons most effective? Besides, you know we’ll disrupt it anyway fighting them as they approach. This will allow us to delay their arrival.”

Katy nodded and knew Michael was right. “I’ll send the Attackships into the void and detonate nuclear missiles.”

“Get it done quickly. The Legends will arrive shortly.”

“Yes Sir.”

• • •

Jinks and Stoney entered Michael’s office and Michael rose to greet them, “It’s really good to see both of you; I can use your help.”

Jinks smiled and shook Michael’s hand, “You look so much like your father, Michael. How’s he doing?”

“He’s on a beach somewhere in Andromeda.”

Jinks’ brow furrowed, “He would be a much better choice to do this than me. I only followed his orders when I served.”

Stoney slapped him on the shoulder, “Now, who’s blowing smoke? You did much more than that and you know it.”

Jinks tilted his head, “Stoney, you’ve always been my best friend and you’ve picked me up when I needed it. But you know it was Chris that made the difference. Without him, we would have failed.” Stoney stared at Jinks and after a moment, sighed, and then nodded. Jinks looked at Michael, “How do you want to handle this?”

“I’m placing you in command of the Battle Pods. I originally thought you would have to take on the tools that the Legends were bringing with them but we’ve already met them and eliminated them.”

Jinks’ eyes widened, “How many?”

“About double or triple the size of the one you faced twenty years ago.” Jinks looked at Stoney and both of them shook their heads. “I discovered that the Legends coming here weren’t bringing their tools; they decided the trip was too long to have to wait on them. So your ships will be facing off against the Monster and Mini-monster warships.”

“I’ve heard about them. Do you have any footage on them?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Michael pressed his wrist unit and the monitor on the wall illuminated with the image of the giant black warship that was destroyed outside the Bullet Cluster.

“I don’t get a sense of how big it is just hanging in open space.”

Michael pressed a button on his WU and the view moved in closer and closer until Jinks saw a small ship on the hull. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes, it’s a Battle Pod.”

Jinks started shaking his head, “That ship is as large as a…”

Stoney said, “Moon.” Jinks nodded.

“And it’s just as fast as a Battle Pod in the void.”

Jinks looked at Michael, “Is that why you had the void disrupted around our Solar System?”

“That’s part of the reason. I want them to have to come at us at a much slower speed so we have time to reduce their numbers before they arrive at the planet.”

Jinks turned back to the monitor, “A Battle Pod won’t survive very long attacking that thing.”

“That’s not your target.” Michael changed the image and another black warship appeared on the monitor. “This is what we call the Mini-monster. It’s thirty miles long and uses the same disruptors as the Monster.”

Jinks stared at the image and moved closer to look closely at it. “There are gaps in the coverage.”

“Very good, Fleet Admiral. Your fleets of Battle Pods have been practicing moving through the gaps in the disruptor coverage to get close enough to the hull to launch a heavy round.”

Jinks looked at Michael, “And a heavy round is…?”

“A large explosive device with a dark energy ball on its nose to penetrate force fields and the thickest hulls. Once the dark energy burns out, the explosive inside it detonates.”

“Will a disruptor beam stop it?”

Michael shrugged, “Unfortunately, it will. They have to be fired extremely close to the target to maximize the chance that it will make it through to the hull.”

Jinks looked back at the image, “We’re going to lose a lot of good pilots doing this.” Michael sighed and nodded. “I realize the pilots have been working on hitting the gaps in that ship’s disruptor coverage, but those ships aren’t going to cooperate and simply fly a straight course for our target practice. Hitting those gaps with a madly gyrating warship is impossible at worse and difficult at best.”

“My scouts have sent images of the fleets coming here and it appears they are organized with a thousand of the Mini-monsters surrounding each Monster. There’s good and bad news with this formation.”

Jinks nodded, “They won’t be able to use radical maneuvers in a formation like that but it is going to be next to impossible to get at the Monster.”

Michael nodded, “That’s how I see it, too.” Michael turned to Stoney, “I’m sending you to assist Audrey in organizing the planet’s defenses. We now have a hundred and twenty eight defense satellites above the planet. We’ve place two of them in the Northern Hemisphere and two on the Southern Hemisphere on top of every longitude.”

“I’ve been looking at their armaments on my way here. I’ll see if I can do something to help her.”

Michael walked over to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out two black headbands, “Both of you will need to start wearing these pretty much twenty four hours a day until this is over.”

Jinks looked at the band Michael was holding out to him, “Why?”

Michel shrugged, “This band will block your thoughts and any outside thoughts from entering your brains. The Legends are bringing a telepathic species with them that can suck your brain out faster than you can imagine. We have a thought blocker pattern built into the force field that we believe will protect the people on the surface but you are going to be outside the force field.” Michael held it out and Jinks took it. He handed the other to Stoney, “You’re probably going to be safe inside the force field but you’re going to be much closer to that species than the populations on the surface. We don’t want to take any chances.” Stoney took it and immediately put it on his head.”

Jinks saw him do it and shook his head as he put his on his head, “Always the over achiever.” Stoney shrugged and smiled. “When do I see my fleets?”

“They’re at Eden getting ready for the battle. You can go and meet them there.”

Jinks shook his head, “How? The barrier and the void are disrupted.”

“I’ve had your old pod brought in and Jester is being transferred into one of our Attackships. All Flag Officers will be in them during the coming conflict. We can’t afford losing any of you. All of our warships have been fitted with the new Light Drive.”

“I know nothing about flying that new ship!”

“Jester will handle that and the Weapons Computer will fight the ship. You will have a simulator on board that you can work on during whatever spare time you have but trust your computers to keep you out of trouble. Your job is to lead them from a safe distance.”

“What about you?”

“I have to do the same.”

They heard the door to Michael’s office open and they saw Jinks Junior walk in, “Hey, Dad, it’s good to have you around.” Jinks hugged his son and smiled, “I’m shipping out to Eden. You’re looking good, Son.”

“Thanks, I come from good stock.”