Nowhere to Hide (16 page)

“You could always call in another family or two.”

The Father scoffed, “Do you honestly think the Council would approve that; especially since they think the last attack was successful?”

“You’re right; and none of the other Families would agree to go. How long are the scientists going to take?”

The Father moved left and right, “You know how thorough they are; ten days, maybe twenty.”

“You could attack without their findings.”

“I’m not willing to have that many of our family killed without knowing what to do going in. My children mean more to me than that.”

“Keep me informed.”

“I’ll let you know when we attack. I’m sending our best wing to do it.”

“Is that wise?”

“Like I said, I’m not going to risk large numbers of my children. If that wing can’t do it, we’re going to need help.” Grandfather nodded and the display went dark. The Father watched the recordings again and only saw flashes of green and bright lights hitting his ships.

***

“Salud, you sent the download on the micro-jumps and FTL tracks to all of our ships?”

“I did.”

Chip shook his head, “They’re just not picking it up fast enough.”

“They need something to practice on.”

Chip thought about Salud’s suggestion and activated his communicator. The Kilper Admiral appeared on his display, “Admiral, is it possible for me to borrow ten thousand of your dreadnaughts?”

“For what purpose?”

“I need a large target moving at high speed for my squadrons to practice against.”

The Admiral knew Chip’s fleet was going to be doing most of the heavy lifting in the next attack and didn’t expect most of his fleet to survive. “I can send you twenty thousand that are currently stationed in M87. However, if an attack is imminent, they’ll have to go to their assigned planets to disrupt space around them.”

“Thank you, Admiral. They should help us a lot.”

“Do you want me to get the Hub to set up the exercise?”

“That would be excellent. I’ll need five ships assigned to each of the Dreadnaughts. They’ll be using unarmed missiles to hit your ships. I want your ships to do their best to hit them with a main beam.” Chip knew the Thetas would not be in any danger from the dreadnaught’s beams.

“Do you have a target planet to use?”

“There is an uninhabited planet in the Grey Civilization. Tell your ships if they can get a shot off at the planet, they will win the exercise.”

“And how will they know if they’re eliminated from the operation?”

“If my ships can hit them twice within two seconds, they will be considered out of action.”

“I’ll get the hub to program their sensors accordingly. What about your ships?”

“If you can hit them with one beam, they’re out as well.”

The Admiral shook his head, “Your ships can survive a single Invader beam hit.”

“The purpose of this exercise is to teach them how to avoid being hit. One beam will take them out in this exercise.”

“I’ll have the first wave ready to launch tomorrow at 12 hundred hours.”

“Start with a thousand in each wave; after all my pilots have completed facing a thousand, double the number in the next exercise.”

“Wow, now that’s an optimistic choice.”

“We don’t have long. I need them ready.” The Admiral disappeared from the display and Chip said, “Get this information out to the Commodores and make it a competition to see who is most successful.”

“They’ve got it. The hub has already started sending their assigned targets.”

Chip nodded and hoped the pilots in his fleet learned quickly.

***

Lilly saw the directives for the next day’s operation appear on her monitor and shook her head. She looked at the coordinates of the attack, “Jack, you need to get us to the assigned coordinates now.”

“Issuing orders, Lilly.”

“Jack, how do you like the Theta?”

“I hated it at first…but now I think we’re in a better ship than the attack ships.”

“Why?”

“It’s only slower by a tiny fraction and the force field is much stronger. We can take more hits to get in.”

“Have you got the micro-jumps down pat?”

“Admiral Robinson’s ship helped a lot. She sent the programming for the distance between them to my processors and it’s made a huge difference in controlling the distance between them.”

“Can you get that information out to our squadrons?”

“I’ve already done that. I suspect that is exactly what he wanted us to do.”

“I want you to keep a close eye on any of my pilots that have exceptional skill at mastering these new tactics. I have too many open slots for wing commanders.”

“I’ve already spotted a number of those that have demonstrated success so far. I think this coming exercise will shake out those we can count on.”

“Tell all the squadrons that I will not accept anything less than victory in this exercise.”

“They know, Lilly.”

“Tell them anyway.”

“You’re the boss.”

***

Kregen looked at Ryan Fox, “How have your units taken to the new tactics?”

“I’ve got to say I’m really impressed with the Lieutenant that developed them. They’re not easily done.”

“Well, I let that one get away to the Thetas. I need you to come up with another way to hit those battleships.”

“Sir?”

“I suspect they’ll learn that we hit them from head on in the last attack. What would you do if you were a battleship commander and you were moving in on a planet?”

“I’d continuously fire my bow beams in front of me until I arrived at the planet.”

“That is what they’ll do as well. We have to be able to hit them from any place that offers us an opportunity.”

“The best way to do that is to use a ship to micro-jump the length of a battleship and, as it turns its beams to follow the jumper, another ship will come in from the side in the vacated space.”

“Get them moving on learning that. We don’t have long to get this down.”

“We also don’t have the boson beam to soften up their force fields.”

“The M87 civilizations aren’t going to be idle. They’ll hit the Invaders with their FTL Missiles as they move in.”

“I hope it’s enough, Sir.”

“It was for that Lieutenant. The Thetas will be the back stop on those that get by us. Let’s make sure not many do.”

“I’ll get with Annie and make sure she’s implementing this in her practice.”

Ryan disappeared and Kregen contacted Marissa, “I want you observing our fleets practice. Put some pressure on them to get it right.”

“Yes Sir; we don’t have long.”

Kregen shook his head. “We don’t have long,” seemed to be a common litany.

***

Violet entered Dee’s home and said, “Dee, what do you see?”

“There will be another attack before the main invasion.”

“And?”

“Whether we win or lose, we lose.” Violet grabbed her throat. Dee quickly said, “No, no; I don’t mean we lose the war. I mean that the main invasion will start either way.”

“Why?”

“If we stop the attack, they’ll gather more ships before they come, which will buy us a little more time. If the attack is successful, the main invasion will start immediately. Win or lose, they’re coming.”

“Do you see anything about what will happen?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve tried multiple times to get a sense of what would happen but I think I don’t have enough information to draw a conclusion.”

Violet thought a moment, “Would it be better to lose to have fewer ships come?”

“They’re going after the Green Civilization’s capital.”

“Have you told Ian and Drey?”

“They’ve already surmised that is where the bulk of the next attack would happen. The Sovereign knows and has volunteered to move as much of the population as possible to allow us to fail. He’s taking the long view on this.”

“And?”

“Drey told him to move his population either way. The jury is still out on what we need more.”

“I’m not sure what you mean?”

“We’re updating our ships as quickly as possible but we won’t have the bulk of them done in time. Every day we delay the main invasion; ten million new ships are launched that can fire FTL missiles. If we lose defending the Green Capital, millions of planets in M87 will all be attacked simultaneously; not just the capitals. There is a grudging consensus that we need the extra time.”

“But if two of those giant fleets attack together…”

“We still won’t have enough ships to use against them. That’s why the jury is still out.”

Violet stared at Dee, “What will have to happen to see what path we’re going to take?”

“We’ll need to see how our new ships perform against the Invader’s battleships. If we determine we can take them out with small numbers, we’ll opt in favor of delaying their attack to build more ships.”

“And if we can’t?”

“We’ll let them bomb the planet and take on the smaller group.”

“Have you thought about letting them bomb the planet and taking on the smaller numbers while we’re building ships?”

Dee stared at Violet and activated her display. She started scrolling through the data banks and said, “There are more than a million civilized planets in M87.”

Violet nodded, “That would give us one Theta and one attack ship for each planet. How many Invaders would be sent to each planet?”

Dee shrugged, “If they follow the doctrine they used in their last invasion, they’ll attack one sector of the galaxy at a time with their massed numbers.” Dee closed her eyes. Violet waited and after ten minutes she opened her eyes and said, “I need to know something.” She contacted the Kilper Admiral and when he appeared on her display she asked, “Admiral, how far can space be disrupted around a planet?”

“I don’t know that there is a limit. If we continuously fire the disrupter cannons, we could probably disrupt it as far out as we want. Why do you ask?”

“One more question; how long does the disruption last?”

“About two weeks.”

“Have you tried discharging a boson beam into subspace?”

The Admiral was startled by the question, “As a matter of fact, we have not. What are you thinking about?”

“The Invaders depend on their jump drives to travel large distances. They don’t have FTL drives so it takes them much longer to fly to a planet.”

The Admiral pulled up his display and sent a query to the Hub Computer. He received the answer and said, “We’ve been disrupting space about a million miles from the target planets.”

“How long would it take the Invaders to attack a planet if subspace was disrupted out to a hundred million miles?”

“We can’t disrupt that much space that quickly.”

“Moe, are you listening to this.”

“I am.”

“Get one of the new Thetas out to an uninhabited planetary system and have it fire a boson beam in subspace.”

“Give me a few minutes. I have the system in my data banks but I have to get a Theta there.”

The Admiral stared at Dee. She looked back at him, “What is the Invader’s maximum speed in normal space?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand miles per hour.”

“So it would take an Invader Battleship sixteen days to fly to a planet if space was disrupted a hundred million miles around it?”

The Admiral looked at his terminal, “It appears that is correct.”

“Why do you say appears?”

“We don’t have enough ships to disrupt that much space around the planets in M87.”

“But if we could?”

“It would take more than two weeks for an attacker to reach the planet.”

“Dee, I have your answer.”

“That was quick, Moe.”

“The Theta wasn’t that far from the target system.”

“And?”

“One boson beam disrupted space sixty million miles from the planet.” Dee, Violet, and the Admiral were shocked. “There’s more. The disruption is much more powerful. The effects should last a month or longer.”

“That means it would take them ten days to reach the planet.” The Admiral nodded. “And if they take ten days to arrive, we can gang up on their larger units and then jump to other systems and go after the Invaders with our FTL drives before they arrive.”

Dee turned to Violet, “YOU ARE THE BEST!”

“Why; what did I do?”

“You showed me how to take on their main invasion.”

“How?”

“We allow them to kill the Green Capital. Then we take on the single fleet.”

Dee got on the communicator and called Ian and Drey. They listened to her and didn’t want to believe what they were hearing, but after Moe sent the recording of the disrupted space around the uninhabited planet they began paying attention. Dee laid out her theory and after an hour Drey looked at Ian, “I told you she was incredible.”

***

The Sovereign looked at Ian on his display, “Are you sure we need to do this?”

“We’ve determined with a fair degree of certainty that if we stop the Invaders from getting to your planet, another one of their fleets will probably join the current fleet and attack together. If they destroy your planet without much damage, they’ll invade with the single fleet.”

“We’re going to have to ultimately face multiple fleets, aren’t we?”

“Yes, but if we can defeat the first fleet, the others might reconsider coming here.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Like you say, we’ll have to face multiple fleets.”

“Then why not go ahead and start that now?”

Drey smiled, “Sovereign, when I was a boy, I was often told that at the end of a day I was going to be beaten for not performing as expected. I hated that waiting and would often request they go ahead and get it over with. I never considered that the one that planned to give the beating might have to go somewhere and it wouldn’t happen. Or I’d do something during the day that pleased them and would have the punishment removed. I just hated the waiting. Isn’t that what you’re experiencing now?”

The Sovereign leaned forward, “It’s this constant fear of seeing my civilization destroyed.”

“Every day we delay them combining against us gives us ten million more ships updated to use against them. If this first invasion is stopped, it’s going to take the Invader a long time to reorganize for another attack. We’ve also learned more each time they have attacked. Time is actually on our side if we can slow them down. Allowing your planet to be destroyed will ensure we only have to face one fleet in the initial invasion. We will learn a lot from the fight.”