Nowhere to Hide (15 page)

***

The King looked out at the assembly and smiled, “It’s not often that I have the opportunity to recognize our Warriors for their contributions in defending us against our enemies.” He looked down at Chip standing at attention in front of his throne, “However, what this young pilot has done needs to be recognized immediately.” He looked at the General standing beside Chip, “Thank you for getting him here so quickly.”

The General bowed and stepped back to the ranks of the security detail to the right of the throne. Drey’s eyes narrowed and he looked at Dee, “What’s going on?” Dee shrugged.

The King said, “I have reviewed the recordings of what this young pilot has done during the last Invader attack and I’m amazed at what he was able to accomplish. He and his two support pilots killed more than two hundred enemy battleships and saved eighty planets from being bombarded. He attacked the invading ships head on and placed his life at risk in every attack. The First Councilor has also seen the recordings and agrees that he will be the first recipient of the Golden Galaxy, which is the highest award for bravery that the new Galactic Alliance gives to the few that are deserving of it. It is with a profound sense of pride that one of our own has won the first such recognition. Lt. Robinson, please come forward.”

Drey was shocked speechless. Chip was shocked into immobility. The King saw his stunned expression and stood and walked forward and placed the beautiful green and white ribbon with the Gold Galaxy hanging from it around his neck. Chip gathered his senses and bowed, “I don’t deserve this, Your Majesty.”

“I’m always amazed that those that receive this sort of recognition always say that, Lieutenant.”

“I didn’t do it alone; my two subordinates made it possible.”

“They will be receiving the Solar Star, which is the Union’s highest medal for their actions. They deserve it as well; however, your bravery in attacking the Invader’s ships from point blank range has earned you this award.” The King looked up and said, “I present to the assembled Nobility the first of our brave warriors to receive the Golden Galaxy.”

The room cheered and rushed forward to congratulate Chip. Drey sat in his chair as the King walked forward, “Drey, I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Actually, I thought my Lieutenant had been arrested and I was coming to see him released. I also wanted to have a conversation with the officer that arrested him.”

“Why?”

“I ordered that he was to be brought to me after the battle.”

The King shrugged, “I also ordered him brought here; do you outrank me?”

Drey stared at the King and shook his head, “No, Your Majesty. I was hasty in my coming without learning what was happening.”

“Well, it is good to see you and Dee. Please plan to stay and bring me up to speed on what happened in the last Invader attack.” Drey nodded and lowered his head. The King gave Dee a hug and walked over to congratulate Chip. Drey looked over at the Security General and walked over to where he was standing. Dee rolled her eyes; what was going to happen now?

The General saw Drey approaching and forced himself to remain calm. His heart was beating rapidly but he kept his expression neutral. “General, were you told to bring my Lieutenant to me after the battle ended?”

“I was.”

Drey stared at him for a long moment and then said, “Please let me know in the future when you are unable to follow my directives.”

“I will, Sir. This happened so quickly that I felt it imperative to get him here.”

Drey put his hand out and the General shook it. Drey turned and walked away and Dee fell back in her seat. The General watched Drey walk away and let out the breath he had been holding. “You know you would be dead if not for the Prince’s intervention.”

The General turned and saw Cole standing behind him, “I guess I do.”

“General, you have been ordered by the Prince to turn in your retirement papers in a week.” Cole turned and walked away. The General was angry for a moment and then decided that at least he was still alive to retire. Perhaps it was an even trade.

***

Violet looked at Ian on board E as he watched the feed from the award ceremony, “You know he might figure out what you did here.”

“Let him.”

“But you forced the King to give a medal to that Lieutenant.”

“Actually, I suggested he be given a medal but never the Golden Galaxy. The King watched the recordings of the Lieutenant’s attacks and insisted he deserved our highest award for bravery. The right thing happened here.”

“It’s really good to see you. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I think we can land now and have that meeting without causing too much suspicion.”

“Schedule it for three hours from now.” Violet moved into Ian’s lap and he delayed it until the next day.

***

Chip, Mikki, and Bang sat in front of a table in Cole’s office. They three most powerful couples in the Union sat in front of them. Ian said, “Congratulations, Lieutenant.”

“I thought I was being arrested for modifying my weapon’s system.”

Ian smiled, “If your modification hadn’t worked and someone had been injured or killed, you would have been arrested. However, it did work and success should always be recognized.”

Drey stared at Chip, “I understand you don’t like serving in the Navy.”

Chip looked quickly at Drey and blew out a breath, “I’ve actually been counting the days until my enlistment was over. However, I don’t want to leave now.”

Dee smiled at him, “Why?”

“The Invaders killed my friends; I owe them a debt.”

Ian leaned back in his chair, “Lieutenant, can I get your best effort in the future or are you going to continue to hide your abilities?”

Chip wondered how the Prince had learned about his reluctance to stand out but saw Mikki grimace beside him. She was probably trying to help him. “I’ll do my best, Your Highness.” Chip saw Drey smile and look at his wife. Why did he do that?

Ian turned to Cole, “You’ve inspected his ship; what did you learn?”

“The modifications he made to his belts are easily done. We should be able to get the majority of the attack ships changed in sixty days.”

“Can you do that at El Dorado?”

“Yes, each pilot will assist the engineer in making the modifications.”

“What about the Thetas?”

“We’ve been depending on the boson beams to do their heavy lifting. The missiles were a secondary system used to soften up the enemy’s force fields.”

Chip said, “Excuse me.”

Ian turned to Chip, “Yes.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. It appears that the Invader’s force fields have to be hit numerous times before it can be penetrated. I know that the ships in M87 have hit them with FTL missiles before we go in to take them on.”

Ian nodded, “That’s true.”

Chip turned to Cole, “Is it possible for the boson beams to be fired in a circular pattern?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can the beam be shaped in such a way that it has a hollow, or empty, area inside it?”

Argel nodded, “We can shape the beam anyway we want. We can just have the boson particles fired around a magnetic field in the blaster barrel.”

Chip smiled, “Could the field be wide enough to have a missile launcher inside it?”

Cole’s face showed his shock. Ian saw it, “What’s wrong, Cole?”

Cole started shaking his head, “We should have seen that.”

“Seen what?”

“If the boson beam hits the Invader’s force field in a circular pattern, the blast will not lose any of its energy and will weaken it. If that hit is followed quickly by the three missiles pattern our esteem Lieutenant here developed, the force field won’t have to be softened up to penetrate it. The boson beam will provide the punch needed to get the missiles through.”

Drey smiled, “Are you sure about that?”

“Well, if one doesn’t do it, another one right behind it will.”

“Currently, we’re having to hit their ships ten or twenty times in rapid succession to get penetration.” Ian paused for a moment and said, “If we can get it down to one or two, we stand a chance against them.”

Drey said, “We’re going to need that quickly. They outnumber us by a huge margin. So far the numbers have been on our side but that’s going to change if they send in the entire fleet against us.”

“Cole?”

“Those are major changes, Ian. We can’t just send an engineer out to modify the hulls of the Thetas. They’ll have to be brought in and reworked.”

“Are you saying we won’t be able to get it done before a major invasion?”

“We can get the attack ships done quickly. I’ll get all the planets in the Alliance on board and start modifying the Thetas within a week. However, that’s close to forty million ships that will need work done. We can only get a hundred thousand completed every two days.”

Dee had been listening with her eyes closed and she opened them and said, “Basically, you’re just going to place an insert in the boson beams with a missile launcher inside it, right?” Cole nodded. “You’re not going to have to tear the hulls apart are you?”

“No, just the beam ports have to be reworked.”

Chip interjected, “The belts also have to be modified.”

Cole waved his hand, “That can easily be done prior to the missile launcher being placed.”

“How many missile launchers will have to be manufactured to do this?”

Cole looked at Drey, “None.”

“What!”

“The Thetas already have three launchers; they’ll just have to be moved to the boson beams.”

“What about the missiles ports in the ship’s hulls?”

“The cap that covers them in normal operation will just remain closed.”

Ian turned to Dee, “Why are you asking about this?”

“The Green and Grey Civilizations have more than five million planets. We’ll contract out the work to them. If we can get the inserts to them quickly enough, we should be able to modify all our ships within thirty days.”

Violet’s expression showed her concern, “We’d be giving them boson technology.” Dee chuckled. “Why are you laughing?”

“If I handed you a blaster barrel and asked you to repair it, would you have blaster technology?”

Violet thought a moment and smiled, “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

“And they won’t be working around the reactors or collectors; they’ll see how we fire the weapons but nothing about how we collect the particles.”

Drey looked at Ian, “Do you think they’ll assist us?”

“If we tell them we’re going to leave a hundred thousand of our ships in their territory, I suspect they’ll jump at the opportunity.” Ian stood up, “I’m going to contact them and see if they’ll assist us. Cole, get the factories producing the inserts now! Drey, your ships will be modified first. The attack ships will have to bear the majority of the load if anything happens before we can complete the Thetas.”

The group stood to leave and Drey said, “Lieutenant, would you and your two teammates remain a few moments.” Chip looked at Mikki and hoped he was wrong about what was coming. He wasn’t. “Lieutenant, you are being promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral and will be taking command of a hundred thousand ships that are currently serving in my fleet. You will start training them on your tactics and how to use the new weapons. I suspect that once the Invaders review your attacks, it’s not going to be so easy to hit them head on anymore.” Chip sighed heavily shaking his head. Drey smiled, “You did say to the Prince that you would give your best effort.”

“Yes Sir. However, I’ll need my two wingmen to also be promoted to make sure our ships listen to their directives.”

Drey looked at Bang and Mikki, “Your promotions to Commodore will be pushed through. I need you to get my ships ready for what’s coming.”

“How do you intend to use my fleet, Sir?”

“You will be a hammer. I’m sending you wherever I see a nail that needs hitting.”

“Sir, I’ll also need Captain Lambert promoted; she understands how we did it.”

Drey looked at Dee and saw her nod. “Consider it done, Admiral. Now go out there and make me proud.”

T
he Senior Father watched the recordings brought back by the fleet and felt mixed emotions. The attack had been successful, when taken as a whole, but a number of the ship groups had been wiped out. More than ten thousand planets had been bombarded but…some of the wings were blown out of existence by ships that were next to impossible to record. The larger wing sent against that powerful civilization with the huge green ships were initially successful but their attack faltered and was stopped before hitting the main planet. It was not clear what had stopped them. The attackers either moved too fast to be recorded or they had some way to hide. He replayed the recordings again and saw something…but even at the slowest speed he couldn’t make out what was happening. His display activated and he saw Grandfather, “Congratulations; it appears you were successful.”

“Thank you, Grandfather.” The Senior Father remained silent and Grandfather said, “What’s bothering you?”

“Our largest attack was stopped and all the ships were killed.”

“What killed them?”

“I haven’t been able to make that determination and before I commit the entire family, I need to find out.”

“Why?”

The Father looked up from his monitor to his display, “I suspect those civilizations are attempting various strategies to stop our attacks. Whatever strategy they used in that particular attack worked. I don’t want to send the Family there and have all of them faced with whatever our ships encountered in that attack. I must know what we’re up against.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m sending these recordings to the Council’s scientists and see if they can determine what happened. Once they make complete their study, I’m going to send a large wing to attack that planet again.”

“How large?”

“A thousand ships.”

“Why not more?”

“If we can’t destroy a planet with a thousand ships, we don’t need to be going there.”

“You know the Council won’t accept that.”

“They’re not the ones taking the risk here. If I send a million ships to kill that planet, we’ll only be able to attack a thousand at a time. We can’t use huge numbers against a single planet in the main invasion. If we have to do that, we run a real risk of failure.”